Robin Burk over at Winds of Change has pointed to a fascinating web site: The Edge. The site is devoted to the answers of 120 leading scientists and science writers to this question: what do you believe is true even if you cannot prove it? It makes for fascinating reading and I strongly recommend it to your attention.
Some of their answers are trivial, some are highly technical, and some conflict with one another. They’re all interesting.
For example, I found this answer from Howard Gardner, Harvard University psychologist, particularly interesting:
The Brain Basis of Talent
I believe that human talents are based on distinct patterns of brain connectivity. These patterns can be observed as the individual encounters and ultimately masters an organized activity or domain in his/her culture.
Consider three competing accounts:
#1 Talent is a question of practice. We could all become Mozarts or Einsteins if we persevered.
#2 Talents are fungible. A person who is good in one thing could be good in everything.
#3 The basis of talents is genetic. While true, this account misleadingly implies that a person with a “musical gene” will necessarily evince her musicianship, just as she evinces her eye color or, less happily, Huntington’s disease.
My Account: The most apt analogy is language learning. Nearly all of us can easily master natural languages in the first years of life. We might say that nearly all of us are talented speakers. An analogous process occurs with respect to various talents, with two differences:
- There is greater genetic variance in the potential to evince talent in areas like music, chess, golf, mathematics, leadership, written (as opposed to oral) language, etc.
- Compared to language, the set of relevant activities is more variable within and across cultures. Consider the set of games. A person who masters chess easily in culture l, would not necessarily master poker or ‘go’ in culture 2.
As we attempt to master an activity, neural connections of varying degrees of utility or disutility form. Certain of us have nervous systems that are predisposed to develop quickly along the lines needed to master specific activities (chess) or classes of activities (mathematics) that happen to be available in one or more cultures. Accordingly, assuming such exposure, we will appear talented and become experts quickly. The rest of us can still achieve some expertise, but it will take longer, require more effective teaching, and draw on intellectual faculties and brain networks that the talented person does not have to use.
This hypothesis is currently being tested by Ellen Winner and Gottfried Schlaug. These investigators are imaging the brains of young students before they begin music lessons and for several years thereafter. They also are imaging control groups and administering control (non-music) tasks. After several years of music lessons, judges will determine which students have musical “talent.” The researchers will document the brains of musically talented children before training, and how these brains develop.
If Account #1 is true, hours of practice will explain all. If #2 is true, those best at music should excel at all activities. If #3 is true, individual brain differences should be observable from the start. If my account is true, the most talented students will be distinguished not by differences observable prior to training but rather by the ways in which their neural connections alter during the first years of training.
I suspect that a combination of #1 and #3 is true. I further suspect that the practice effect restructures the brain in such a way that no one person can, in fact, excel at everything. So although a person might have the potential for achieving excellence in anything the very process of achieving that excellence will foreclose other possibilities.
There are lots of things that I believe but can’t prove. Here are a few:
- I believe that all human languages derive from a single common source and are, therefore, related.
- I believe that our genus, genus Homo, doesn’t have as many species in it as paleontologists seem to believe (I also believe that most of these separate species are actually our own species, Homo sapiens).
What do you believe even though you can’t prove it?
Your analogu falls flat because it does not recognize the quality of a talent for its quantity. I.e.- not all musical talents are alike, and their potentialities all waver.
For example, I write poetry greatly, and have known others capable of it, yet they write poor poetry, while people who write poetry far better than the others do could write 1000 years & never come near to greatnes, because they lack the potentiality. The lesser poets cannot as consistently write competently, but may be just a nonce away from greatness.
from http://www.cosmoetica.com/D1-DES1.htm
‘Here is my posit: the human mind has 3 types of intellect. #1 is the Functionary- all of us have it- it is the basic intelligence that IQ tests purport to measure, & it operates on a fairly simple add & subtract basis. #2 is the Creationary- only about 1% of the population has it in any measurable quantity- artists, discoverers, leaders & scientists have this. It is the ability to see beyond the Functionary, & also to see more deeply- especially where pattern recognition is concerned. And also to be able to lead observers with their art. Think of it as Functionary2 . #3 is the Visionary- perhaps only 1% of the Creationary have this in measurable amounts- or 1 in 10,000 people. These are the GREAT artists, etc. It is the ability to see farther than the Creationary, not only see patterns but to make good predictive & productive use of them, to help with creative leaps of illogic (Keats’ Negative Capability), & also not just lead an observer, but impose will on an observer with their art. Think of it as Creationary2 , or Functionary3 .’
In short, most ideas about the brain are graphed two dimensionally, without the third dimension of depth of quality, and range of possibility. DAN
Hi Dave,
Highlighting Gardner’s comment was very interesting.
The parameters of neuroplasticity are at present, very poorly understood. If you look at very high level theoretical physicists and mathematicians, two fields where you can find examples from across a wide range of cultures and ethnic backgrounds, significant breakthroughs almost always come very early in their careers. As a group these theorists are *most* creative when they are relatively the *least* knowledgeable in their professional careers.
Very seldom, does one person ever make a second critical breakthrough, though it does happen on rare occasions. Most often the person in question has begun work in a different field that they can approach with a ” fresh mind”. Look at the small group of ” Double Nobel ” prize winners. More rarely, it is the same field -i.e. Newton, Einstein.
What does this pattern imply about brain connections and creativity ? Probably that training for an already well-organized field creates recognizable neuronal connections that will increasingly make it difficult to ” see outside the box” as the brain more fully master’s the box’s contents.
In general, I would think there is a mix of all 3 theories in play varying between circumstances and individuals. There’s a role for heritability of g, no matter how much training I received under ideal circumstances I simply would not have become a string theorist. Nor for that matter, a concert pianist though in the latter case I’d have probably mastered a passable level of skill on the piano if I practiced enough.