isomorphismes

[I]t is … anachronistic to apply the term artist with its modern connotation to Leonardo [da Vinci]. Artists in the sense that we understand and use the word, meaning practitioner of fine art, didn’t exist in Leonardo’s time. It would be more appropriate to use the word artisan in its meaning of craftsman or skilled hand worker.

In the historical literature ∃ a perfectly good term to describe Leonardo and his ilk, Renaissance artist-engineer, whereby one can actually drop the term Renaissance as this profession already existed in the High Middle Ages before the Renaissance is considered to have begun.

[T]he artist-engineers were … regarded as menials. An artist-engineer was expected to be a practical mathematician, surveyor, architect, cartographer, landscape gardener, designer and constructor of scientific and technical instruments, designer of war engines and supervisor of their construction, designers of masks, pageants, parades and other public entertainments oh and an artist.

The … polymath … that everybody raves about when discussing Leonardo … actually … perfectly normal … any Renaissance artist-engineer—the only difference being that Leonardo was better at nearly all of them than most of his rivals.

As far as his dissections and anatomical drawings are concerned these belong to the standard training of a Renaissance artist-engineer—the major difference here being that Leonardo appears to have carried these exercises further than his contemporaries and his anatomical sketches have survived whereas those of the other Renaissance artists have not.

Having denied Leonardo the title of artist I think it is only fair to point out that it was the generation to which Leonardo belonged who were the first to become recognised as artists rather than craftsmen and in fact it has been claimed that Raphael was the first artist in the modern sense of the word….

[an exhibition on da Vinci] emphasises the few occasions where Leonardo drew something new or unexpected whilst ignoring the vast number of scientifically normal or often incorrect drawings, thereby creating the impression that his anatomical drawings were much more revolutionary than they in reality were. Also whilst the drawings published by Vesalius in his De fabrica in 1543, i.e. a couple of decades after Leonardo’s death, are possibly not quite as good artistically, as those done by Leonardo, they are medically much more advanced.

We are telling kids who are good at school that they have better opportunities than others (and kids that are not good at school that they are doomed). Then we are telling kids who are good at school to stay in school. We (including politicians who make policy that entrenches this) are telling kids that being good at school is the key thing needed to earn a decent living.

This is ALL lies.

The fact that we then compound those lies by telling the people who are good at university that they should stay in university and that if they are really good someone will eventually pay them to stay in university is just the icing on the cake of lies.

[An] IQ test … only measures how good of an IQ tester you are.

1) Believe [it] or not, you can improve IQ test score by PRACTICE. See for yourself. It is no more than a computer game which some people may show great playing ability at first but eventually most of people can excel with lots of playing time. There was a time when some people believed Tetris can be a good measure of how good one’s brain is.

2) [The] IQ test was NOT created to evaluate [an] adult’s brain capability. Researchers devised the test to see if they can discover children with learning disabilities. That means [a] low score is the only meaningful [outcome]. The test was designed to estimate if the children are behind or advanced to their own peers. In other words, it only shows one has a brain as good as normal adults with perfect score.

3) Despite these facts, IQ test can sometimes distinguish smart/less smart people in certain areas. However, so can other measurements (e.g. education, family background, living environment). The issue here is how accurate the measurement is in evaluation of brain functionality. Basically, you will have to measure how fast and efficiently your neurons are working along with density of neurons. Even then, this measurement may have nothing to do in judging one is a genius or not.

4) Nobody’s brain is infinite and [neither] is genius’ brain. One can maximize the productivity in a certain area by eliminating the need of wasting the brain in other areas and solely focus on one area, say mathematics. You can brag about how much you know and fast you can solve a problem; however, developing a new idea is limited to still to the areas you are familiar with. Unlike 1600s, there is too much to know and understand to master the entire area of mathematics or a piece of area in mathematics.

5) Speaking of understanding, how do you accelerate the speed of understanding? As prof. Tao pointed [out], one should have enough knowledge to process the reasoning. As you know more about the field, your brain can eliminate the things that are irrelevant to the subject and also relate to the ones you already know; thus, works more efficiently. For instance, study the strategies in chess, then, you would be able to beat normal people in most of times in chess game. No matter how genius…an individual is, s/he cannot beat out an expert in understanding the subject without proper training or learning depending on the difficulty of subjects.

Still, the illusion of genius is fun to enjoy in a similar way to we want to admire an excellent individual in each area. I think it is no different than praising a sports star.