[Gianteye]

For each of the Rain-Man savants in the world who can look at a pile of dropped toothpicks fresh from the box and tell you that there are 1996 rolling across the floor, there are a hundred savvy chaps who will see a fresh box with "2000 count" on the side, the four remaining un-dropped toothpicks, and make an educated guess.

There are people who have always been able to look at a Rubix cube and solve it on intuition, but that number's piddling compared to the people who can do something that looks exactly the same, but involved practice, study, interest, and the gradual honing of some basic principles into a slick, refined art.

[sliverstorm]

Not to mention, so long as there is more than one Rain-Man savant the one you see & are impressed by has plenty of sweat and blood into it too. How else did he rise to the top from amongst the other savants? He wasn't just 'more savant'.

[zandorg]

Exactly. I imagine today Rainman would get a university degree.