<p>Post #2 and Post #20 do not make sense together.</p>
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<p>He was joking when he made that statement, Feynman looked down upon IQ testing. His example shows the limitations of intelligence testing.</p>
<p>Re: Post 14 - Mensa</p>
<p>It makes sense that Feynman’s comment was disingenuous.</p>
<p>Though it certainly isn’t a proven denominator, one theory that connects “genius,” Einstein, and Feynman is brain structure. Back in 1999 (I think), the Lancet published a study on Einstein’s brain. His parietal lobes were found to be unusually large and undivided, probably a gestational occurence. Theoretically, these lobules would permit better integration for math and spatial thought. Delayed speech is linked to this brain morphology. Einstein didn’t speak well until he was 3 or so. Richard Feynman and Edward Teller were also late speakers. </p>
<p>Rothenberg (2005) in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, developed another possible common denominator for Nobel prize winners: the presence of congruent-sex parents who had scientific or creative desires that were unrealized. In other words, an IQ doesn’t tell the whole story.</p>
<p>Rothenberg wrote: “Reports indicating parental unfulfilled wishes were collected from all available published sources and from confidential NLS systematic research interviews, which I conducted. For example, the physician father of biophysicist Maurice Wilkins (NLS-M&P) had a lifelong interest in basic research but reportedly had little opportunity to do it. Similarly, during a research interview, microbiologist Werner Arber (NLS-M&P) first asserted that there was no scientific background in his family-that his father was a dirt farmer. Then, he remembered that his fanner father strove constantly to invent materials and improvements in agricultural products and practices. Physicist Richard Feynman’s small-businessman father was an early medical school drop-out; he frequently spoke to his son of his frustrated ambition to be a research scientist and, from an early age, actively taught him principles of pattern recognition. Such wishes and tendencies emerged frequently throughout systematic research interviews (as in the case of Werner Arber) and are likely underreported in published biographies.”</p>
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according to my psychology book (i no longer remember the name of it), that’s not true.
When they examined his brain, there was nothing bizarre in it’s size. However, when they looked at the number of nuerons running to the brain, they found that he had very few (compared to the average) running to his frontal lobe (which deals with reason and logic) but he had an insande number (like 10X) running to his parietal lobe.</p>
<p>Untrue? I have no idea how rigorous the authors of your psychology book were, or how carefully you remember the details from your book, however, the research I cited is true. This research remains important and is often cited by other scholar. His parietal lobes were found to be remarkable.</p>
<p>Here is part of the discussion written by Witelson, Kigar, & Harvey, from Lancet (1999), entitled, “The exceptional brain of Albert Einstein.”</p>
<p>Einstein’s parietal lobes </p>
<p>Figure 1 shows the set of photographs taken in 1955 of the lateral, superior, inferior, and midsagittal views of Einstein’s brain. The superior view (figure 1A) shows a relatively spherical brain which is corroborated quantitatively (see below). Moderate atrophy is present around the main fissures in the central regions in both hemispheres, to an extent common for a person in their eighth decade.22 A unique morphological feature is visible in the lateral surface of each hemisphere which otherwise shows usual anatomy (figure 1B, 1C)-- namely, the posterior ascending branch of the Sylvian fissure is confluent with the postcentral sulcus. Consequently, there is no parietal operculum (the anterior part of the supramarginal gyrus), which normally develops between these two sulci during fetal life.23,24 This morphology found in each of Einstein’s hemispheres was not seen in any hemisphere of the 35 control male brains or of the 56 female brains, nor in any specimen documented in the published collections of post-mortem brains.25,26 </p>
<p>Figure 2 highlights this unique feature of Einstein’s brain in comparison with a typical control brain. Three main types of morphology of the Sylvian fissure and surrounding gyri have been described previously;27 in each type, the Sylvian fissure terminates or bifurcates behind the postcentral sulcus, and the parietal operculum is present. The tracing of the superimposed hemispheres of the control brain (figure 2, no 3) shows the typical right-left asymmetry in size and position of the Sylvian fissure and the parietal opercula.28 By contrast, the tracing of Einstein’s hemispheres (figure 2, no 6) shows the confluence of the posterior ascending branch of the Sylvian fissure and the postcentral sulcus in each hemisphere, the absence of the parietal opercula, and unusual symmetry between hemispheres of sulcal morphology in this region. </p>
<p>Brain length, height, size of the corpus callosum, and measures of the frontal and temporal lobes did not differ between Einstein and controls. However, size of a specific gyral region in the frontal operculum was different in Einstein’s brain from that of the control group. The possible association of this feature in relation to biographical accounts of Einstein’s atypical speech development17 will be reported elsewhere. </p>
<p>By contrast, in the parietal lobes, there were striking quantitative differences. Each hemisphere of Einstein’s brain was 1 cm wider (15%) than that of the control group (measure 5). Maximum width usually occurs across the end of the Sylvian fissure-the region of unique morphology in Einstein’s brain. The ratios of hemisphere width to height and of brain width to length (measures 6 and 7) showed that in Einstein’s brain the parietal lobes were relatively wider and the brain more spherical (see figure 1A) than those in the control group. In Einstein’s brain, the parietal operculum was missing in each hemisphere in contrast to control values of 6.1 cm^sup 2^ and 3.6 cm^sup 2^ in the left and right hemispheres, respectively (measure 24). Parietal regions typically show anatomical asymmetry (table, control group, measures 19-2428). Einstein’s parietal lobes were symmetrical (compare with figure 2, no 6). This was due mainly to his left parietal lobe being larger than usual, resembling a right hemisphere in size and morphology. </p>
<p>Discussion </p>
<p>The gross anatomy of Einstein’s brain was within normal limits with the exception of his parietal lobes. In each hemisphere, morphology of the Sylvian fissure was unique compared with 182 hemispheres from the 35 control male and 56 female brains: the posterior end of the Sylvian fissure had a relatively anterior position, associated with no parietal operculum. In this same region, Einstein’s brain was 15% wider than controls. These two features suggest that, in Einstein’s brain, extensive development of the posterior parietal lobes occurred early,24 in both longitudinal and breadth dimensions, thereby constraining the posterior expansion of the Sylvian fissure and the development of the parietal operculum, but resulting in a larger expanse of the inferior parietal lobule. A further consequence of this morphology is that the full supramarginal gyrus lies behind the Sylvian fissure, undivided by a major sulcus as is usually the case. Van Essen29 hypothesised that a gyrus develops within a region of functionally related cortex to allow for efficient axonal connectivity between opposite cortical walls of the gyrus; by contrast, sulci separate cortical regions having less functional relatedness. In this context, the compactness of Einstein’s supramarginal gyms within the inferior parietal lobule may reflect an extraordinarily large expanse of highly integrated cortex within a functional network. And in fact there is evidence that cortical representation of different functions is often separated by sulci.30 This notion could be consistent with Cajal’s31 speculation that variation in axonal connectivity may be a neuronal correlate of intelligence. A larger expanse of a functional cortical network may reflect more modules32 which could provide a functional advantage. </p>
<p>The inferior parietal lobule is well developed in the human brain; it is a secondary association area that provides for cross-modal associations among visual, somesthetic, and auditory stimuli.7 Visuospatial cognition, mathematical thought,11 and imagery of movement13 are strongly dependent on this region. Einstein’s exceptional intellect in these cognitive domains and his self-described mode of scientific thinking10 may be related to the atypical anatomy in his inferior parietal lobules. Increased expansion of the inferior parietal region was also noted in other physicists and mathematicians. For example, for both the mathematician, Gauss, and the physicist, Siljestrom, extensive development of the inferior parietal regions, including the supramarginal gyri, was noted (ref 4, pp 180, 200). </p>
<p>Einstein’s brain weight was not different from that of controls, clearly indicating that a large (heavy) brain is not a necessary condition for exceptional intellect. </p>
<p>Microscopic differences may underlie gross anatomical differences. The limited data on Einstein’s brain do not point to a difference in the number of neurons throughout the depth of the cortex in the frontal or temporal lobes,33,34 but possibly a difference in the ratio of the number of glial cells relative to neurons in the left parietal cortex35 (compare ref 36)."</p>
<p>^In other words…?</p>
<p>Haha, anyway, I also recall that Einstein’s brain was abnormally shaped in some way. Probably the parietal lobe MBP was talking about.</p>
<p>Can you please give me the link of where you found William Shockley’s IQ? Thanks!</p>
<p>Anything above 120 is, statistically, higher than most of the population.</p>
<p>I don’t think iq has anything to do with being a scientist/nobel laureate.</p>
<p>Beaker from, of course, the duo of Bunsen and Beaker.</p>
<p>Shockley’s IQ test results cam from when he tried to test into Terman’s gifted study.</p>
<p>“Anything above 120 is, statistically, higher than most of the population.”</p>
<p>Make that 100.</p>
<p>People take IQ scores seriously? Wow</p>