High IQ relative to the population
Smarter people are better at thinking
Studies have found that the ability of a country’s cognitive elite is generally more predictive than the average ability
High level of hunter-gatherer fitness (HGF) relative to the population
Most geniuses are male and often autistic/neurodivergent
Female geniuses are almost always highly autistic/neurodivergent (Florence Nightingale, Marie Curie, Ada Lovelace, Lise Meitner)
Neurodivergence has a large overlap with HGF
IQ has a correlation with myopia, yet most geniuses don’t have myopia
This allows the genius to remain objective and not conform
In the upper-brackets, IQ likely has a negative correlation with size, strength and testosterone, making geniuses extremely rare
Extreme asceticism
Most geniuses didn’t have a partner or children
Most geniuses appear in eras where hedonism was reduced to a minimum (Victorian era, Renaissance era, Classical Greece)
All their energy was directed into their field
Of all his achievements, Isaac Newton considered his greatest was dying a virgin, and I have to agree
That’s it.
Thanks Windsor. Good to see you still post on your blog. And you're right it was short, but I still learnt something new.
“Studies have found that the ability of a country’s cognitive elite is generally more predictive than the average ability.”
Since cognitive ability is normally distributed, the average determines the far right tail and vice versa. So one is no more predictive of anything than the other. Each is simply a statement of the same thing: the distribution of cognitive ability from left tail to right tail in a particular place.