The Problem of Genius

by Ian Taylor
The December 1, 1986, issue of Time magazine (128:75) reported the case of prodigy Stephen Baccus who, at 17, had just become the youngest known person ever to be sworn in as a lawyer in the United States. He graduated from high school at 12 and from university at 14. Such cases are uncommon and tend to catch the attention of the popular media. However, Stephen Baccus is not outstanding among that rare breed of individuals recognized by the rest of us as "genius." The Guiness Book of World Records reports the even more remarkable case of Kim Ung-Yong, born in Seoul, Korea. In 1967 Kim appeared on a Tokyo TV program proficient in four languages: Korean, Japanese, English and German, having written some very passable poetry and able to handle integral calculus with ease. Kim was then just four years old. The reader may wonder what relevance these reports have to the creation/evolution debate going on today. Actually, these cases of genius are very good evidence for creation and the fall of humanity. But first we need to see just what is meant by genius. According to the dictionary definition, a genius is a person endowed with transcendent mental superiority, having imaginative, creative or inventive capacity. Interestingly, most dictionaries place the first definition as "a tutelary spirit, a supernatural being, a demon." In Muslim mythology, this demon is a "jenni" or "genni," while in Roman mythology genius is a guardian or tutelary spirit assigned to the person at birth. The true genius becomes evident at a very early age and is known as a child prodigy; many wellknown names in history will be found to have been child prodigies. Scientists Ampere and Gauss were both recognized as prodigies at three years of age. The musicians are well represented: Mozart, for example had published four sonatas by the age of seven, while Liszt, Chopin and Yehudi Menuhin were all public concert performers before they were 11. Philosopher John Stuart Mill had learned Greek by the time he was three, and the painter Turner had produced at least three small masterpieces at the age of 12 (Burt 1965). It is sometimes said that genius is next to madness, but the works of Schott (1931) and Juda (1949) show that there is no causal relationship between genius and mental instability. Among the notable characteristics of the genius is the tendency to be self-taught, a capacious and very accurate memory, and creative ability. The memory aspect will be dealt with later, but it is interesting to see what the geniuses themselves say about their creative talent and how they receive the ideas by "inspiration." First, the writers: Blake said of his poem Milton, "I have written this poem from immediate dictation, twelve or sometimes twenty or thirty lines at a time, without premeditation, and even against my will." Shelley said, "Poetry is not like reasoning, a power to be exerted according to the determination of the will. A man cannot say: `I will write poetry.' The greatest poet even cannot say it." One after another the great writers, poets and artists confirm that their work comes to them from beyond the threshold of consciousness (Tyrrell 1946, 30). In a short book written for his friends in the year of his death, author and poet Rudyard Kipling (1937) was more explicit and said: "My Daemon was with me in the Jungle Book, Kim and both Puck books and good care I took to walk delicately, lest he should withdraw. . . . Note here. When your Daemon is in charge, do not try to think consciously. Drift, wait and obey" (p. 210). The writer Robert Louis Stevenson (1892) suffered nightmares since childhood but managed to control them and eventually make use of them. He described himself as sitting in a box at a theater watching his "Brownies" act out the stories for which he later became so famous. He admitted that

the little people, the Brownies, did half the work for him while he was fast asleep (p. 254ff.). The scientists are usually more reluctant to talk about the source of their creative ideas. Nevertheless, we find, for example, Lord Kelvin who had at times to devise explanations of that which had come to him in a flash of intuition. Kelvin was a brilliant inventor. Alfred Russel Wallace has left us his famous description of the moment he received his revelation of natural selection as the mechanism for Darwin's evolution. Brackman (1980) observes that Wallace was suffering from a "malarial high" at the time (p. 198). A final example is that of German physiologist Otto Loewi (1953), who received the Nobel prize in 1936 for his discovery of the chemical transmission of nerve impulses. He described how the experiment came to him in a dream the night before Easter Sunday, 1920. The next night the dream returned, and he immediately got up at 3 a.m. and successfully did the experiment using frog hearts (p. 32). The classic experiment is still used in teaching today. Two other categories not classified as genius need to be mentioned: the lightning-calculator and the idiot-savant. The principal characteristic that divides these individuals from the genius is creative ability. Bousfield and Barry (1933), reporting in the American Journal of Psychology, examined Mr. Salo Finkelstein, a Polish lightning-calculator. The subject could mentally and almost instantaneously calculate to seven figures the log of any number up to 100; similarly, he could calculate squares or cubes of quite large numbers or take their roots. Apart from this ability to handle very large numbers mentally, Mr. Finkelstein was otherwise quite normal. The idiot-savant, however, is a complete enigma for which there is no possible scientific explanation. Horowitz (1965) reports an extreme case in which the subjects were identical twins. These men were certifiable idiots, could neither read nor write nor even count beyond 30, but they each had the same unique talent for calendar calculations. Given any date in the past or future, they could tell instantly the day of the week on which that date fell; one of the twins had a range of at least 6,000 years. They could also tell, for example, what years April 21 would fall on a Sunday and instantly and correctly answered 1946, 1957, 1963, 1968, etc. The usual explanation offered for idiot-savants, whose one talent is generally calendar calculations, is eidetic memory. That is, a photographic memory but in the case of these men, this explanation is certainly inadequate. The men themselves have no idea how they perform, but simply say, "I know; it's in my head." So much for geniuses, lightning-calculators and idiot-savants. The origin of inspiration for the genius (and perhaps the inspirations that occasionally befall the rest of us mere mortals) and the origin of the idiot-savant's information is seemingly beyond science. Possibly a clue is given in the verse "How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God! How great is the sum of them!" (Psalm 139:17). However, the one tangible characteristic common to the genius and the lightning-calculator is superior memory. Often the genius is also a lightning-calculator, as in the case of Karl Gauss, while more recently Hunter (1962) has had the opportunity to examine such a subject, Prof. Alexander C. Aitken, head of the mathematics department, Edinburgh University. Accuracy of and capacity for memory is then the key attribute of these unusual and remarkable people. The genius poses a great problem for the theory of evolution, and we often hear in defense that humans use only 10% of their brain capacity. No one seems to know where and how this was determined, but the statement is then quickly followed by pointing out that geniuses use nearly all of their capacity. If this statement is true, we have to ask the question, How is it possible that natural selection (or any other evolutionary mechanism) has provided us with a brain capacity far

exceeding our use of it? From the evolutionary standpoint, this leads to the uncomfortable conclusion that nature knows ahead of time what our future requirements will be. This is proposing teleology and replaces the chance mechanism of evolution by an "intelligence" within nature. Neither Darwin nor any of the faithful to evolution would tolerate such an idea (Taylor 1984, 369). The proposed lack of full use of our brain leads dangerously close to the alternative that long ago humans used their entire brain capacity and have since allowed it to fall into disuse. Both the genius and the lightning-calculator can then be better explained on the basis of unusual retention of ancestral brain capacity rather than prolepsis of an evolutionary aspiration. Certainly it is stretching the bounds of credulity to suggest that genius is the result of some fortuitous genetic mutation; mutations are invariably degenerative. What evidence then do we have that humans had superior memories in the past? Actually, there is abundant evidence, but just a few examples will be given here. Historians such as Plutarch, when writing of great men, mention almost casually that, for example, Themistocles could name every citizen of Athens, even though there were over 20,000. In more recent history, Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, memorized the entire Bible in three months (Anon. 1870, 383). But, it may be objected, all these are just fanciful embellishments. Is there not something more concrete? There is indeed, in the Hebrew language. Hebrew, like most ancient languages, is consonal; that is, no use is made of vowels; e.g., A,E,I,O and U in English. This means that several words can be spelled with the same letters but have entirely different pronunciations and meanings. The equivalent in English would be DG, which might be DOG or DIG; the reader would know which was meant by the context. To our way of thinking this might appear to be a very difficult way to record words and ideas, but it is clear that this written language for the Scriptures was actually a "shorthand" that could be read only by those thoroughly familiar with every word of the text. In other words, those ancient people knew the entire Old Testament almost by heart; the written text was kept at the synagogue for teaching and reference. Not only the Scriptures but also "the studies" i.e., the Talmud, were also committed to memory. The Talmud contains many mnemonics, or aids to memory, which were necessary because of the fact that it was originally transmitted orally (Encyclopedia Judaica 1971, 12:187). Later, the Talmud was written, but as time went by, the rabbis were required to add vowel-points to the letters of the words of both the Talmud and the Scriptures to aid their pronunciation and understanding. This happened about AD 500. Today the Babylonian Talmud consists of 12 large folio volumes comprising thousands of pages. Each page in each edition printed begins and ends with exactly the same words so that any statement can be specified precisely by page and line number. Writing in the Psychological Review, Stratton (1917) describes the phenomenal Shass Pollack. These men, usually Polish, have committed the entire Talmud to memory, not only the words but their places by page and line number! A common game to test their skill was to stick a pin in the text at random, say, fourth book, fifth page, sixth line and ask what word the pin has pierced having passed through six pages? This is surely an incredible feat of memory, yet it demonstrates the capability of the human mind. At the same time, it is a confirmation that, indeed, ancient people could transmit information orally and very accurately. The genius, the lightning-calculator and the Shass Pollack would, most reasonably, appear to be vestiges left to us today as evidence of man as a supernaturally created being in God's image. We are reminded, then, that "God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." (Gen. 1:27). This denies evolutionary ascent from animal

ancestors, is prime evidence of our fall from noble beginnings and should put into question the idea of progress in history. Anonymous. 1870. Eclectic Magazine (New York) 12:383. Bousfield, W.A., and H. Barry. 1933. American Journal of Psychology 45:353. Brackman, Arnold C. 1980. A Delicate Arrangement. New York: Times Books. Burt, Cyril. 1965. New Scientist (London) 28:122.