<p>Keep in mind the difference between being smart, and being intelligent.</p>
<p>^^
Yeah, that interview is pretty hilarious, but you can’t blame him for acting that way. He can’t help it.</p>
<p>And I don’t think he’s arrogant at all. Public education wouldn’t have been able to teach him very much at all.</p>
<p>I think the hate here is pretty unwarranted.</p>
<p>Congratulations to Evan. :)</p>
<p>Seriously, if you have ever had a chat with him (he sat down with me for lunch once), you’d find he is a very remarkable and talkative person, and not too socially awkward.</p>
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<p>That’s the humbling thing about going to Harvard. You may have been King of the Universe back at your high school and succeeded wonderfully at everything you tried. And that’s great. But when you get to Harvard you’ll meet kids right there on your dorm floor or in your classes who are so brilliant as to make you look ■■■■■■■■ by comparison.</p>
<p>I think his accomplishments are very impressive and he deserves my respect and well-wishes. Don’t hate him for being smarter than most people and unwilling to lie about it.</p>
<p>I have met him once and we discussed his Intel Science project. This was before he won. He was very humble really and spoke enthusiastically and patiently about what he had done though I could not follow everything he said. He was far from arrogant and infact said that all the other projects had to do with saving lives which actually had him awestruck.</p>
<p>How did his mother mentor him…</p>
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<p>I agree. He has said some stuff in interviews (particularly the spelling bee interview) that seems obnoxious, but I don’t think it’s arrogance. For instance, when the reporter asked him how his mom felt after he won, he was like, “Why don’t you ask HER how she feels?” Or if he’s asked a question, he will sit and ponder it for too long even if he’s on air. I don’t think it was malicious or arrogance, though. Someone should have told him to just give them the canned answer they were looking for instead of giving “The Best Week Ever” new comedy material. Or he should have thought of some responses ahead of time to likely questions so he didn’t sit there for too long before responded.</p>
<p>Unless people know him personally, I don’t think he necessarily has Asperger’s either. I’ve noticed people throw around psychological diagnosis on cc very easily (bipolar is the other diagnosis that people misdiagnose.)</p>
<p>Also, in case it wasn’t obvious, my previous post that responded to someone saying he should have gone to public school to be humbled was sarcastic. Like Saugas said, he wouldn’t have learned anything there.</p>
<p>I don’t believe for a second that someone that “smart” can’t learn manners. Give him a book on etiquette and tell him to memorize it.</p>
<p>Jimbo, it’s not that simple. For many Asperger’s kids (and I’m not saying Evan is one), you have to script them for various real life encounters. The unknowns of dealing with people can be terrifying. You have to start small, with buying lunch, and work your way up. Someone with Asperger’s would memorize the etiquette book and point out other people’s violations - not what you had in mind, right?</p>
<p>I met a little boy, about eight, that could memorize ettiquette but not use it the other day. </p>
<p>Sent to me for an ADHD eval, but he seemed so smart to me, that I am convinced that he does not really NEED to “pay attention”, and can still learn everything that teachers is trying to teach.(Yes, I know he can still have ADHD). </p>
<p>In any case, he is on a “behavior contract” that involves his “partnering skills”. Early in the ineterview I asked him what skills he was working on, and he rattled off maybe eleven “essential skills for working with partners”. He also acknowledged he still struggled to implement them.</p>
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<p>And why should he? From what I’ve seen, he’s very honest and direct. What’s so bad about that?</p>
<p>"I don’t believe for a second that someone that “smart” can’t learn manners. Give him a book on etiquette and tell him to memorize it. "</p>
<p>Then you haven’t met many people with Autism or Asbergers. Don’t speak so firmly about something with which you seem to have so little experience.</p>
<p>Actually, people with Aspergers are often excellent at memorizing rules and applying them. So when you notice that someone with it stands an inch or two away from his listener, you can explain that it’s important to stand at least two feet away and they can learn to apply that rule. But that doesn’t mean that the person understands why another individual needs personal space, can apply rules of social conduct intuitively, or can extrapolate to infer that if violating personal space is not acceptable then interrupting the other’s conversation wouldn’t be as well.</p>
<p>^Where’s my like button?</p>
<p>He’s the next stephen hawkings lol.</p>