[vinhboy]

> his father taught statistics and his mother became one of the first professors of Russian literature in South Korea

I notice that really talented people, always have talented parents. Rarely do I read stories about poor blue collar parents producing science wiz. It leads me to believe that genetics play a much bigger role in our intelligence than nurture.

[screye]

Doesn't it support nurture in a way though ?

Children with genius parents usually expose their children to high level content very early into their childhood. They also pass on a way of thinking and intuition of their subjects that a non-expert in the field won't have.

[0x4d464d48]

I think exposure has a lot to do with it along with aptitude.

I noticed that too but my parents weren't talented in an intellectual sense. In fact, they were fairly ordinary and one was a high school drop out. I was brought up believing that science is for eggheads and worse people who spent too much time studying were socially inept and justly shunned.

Fast forward a few years. I went to university in my mid twenties and study computer science and take as many hard, ball-busting science classes I could. I noticed that a lot of the people there had already had patents who had careers in science, particularly physicians and engineers. I'd say that's very important to grow up with mentors and resources to teach you how to learn in the first place (my life has improved by orders of magnitude since I learned how to grok). Almost everyone I know who performed well in these classes put in more time studying and they struggled just as much as anyone else.

Genetics plays a role in success in science and math but socialization also plays a profound role. Maybe I just have an axe to grind but the myth of science and math being reserved for rarified genius over the curious and dedicated does a lot more harm then good.

[bradjohnson]

Why does it lead you to believe that? If they have talented parents, wouldn't the parents raise them in a way to encourage their talents to blossom?

Would be interesting to see if the children of talented parents that are put up for adoption and raised by average parents are as successful. Or vice versa, talented parents raising children of average parents.

[vinhboy]

I guess you're right. I am obviously not that smart... Haha..

But to your point, Steve Jobs is an example of that. He had blue collar adoptive parents, but his birth parents were PhD level people.

I am not gonna put my foot in my mouth again and say this is proof of anything, but it is interesting to me.

[jacquesm]

It's the nature vs nurture thing. It mostly boils down to 'a bit of both' and if you are really lucky in either department then you can still very well manage to succeed.

[bradjohnson]

Just be born rich or well connected and you will have no need for silly things like talent!

[dlo]

> Rarely do I read stories about poor blue collar parents producing Princeton math wiz.

Rare. But when it happens, it rocks the Earth. [1]

[1] Richard Feynman

[cgag]

If you listen to him talk about his farther he sounds like he was very intelligent.

[eric_bullington]

Others have noted Feynman, Ramanujan. Walter Pitts is another one, who had a very rough childhood with poor, working class parents.

[psyc]

Income, genetics, and upbringing are 3 distinct things, regardless of whether they're correlated.

[dfinlay]

Teaching your child statistics is definitively nurture.

[deepnotderp]

Ramanujan is one.