Of Genius, Wealth and Poverty

We live in a world that worships money - and accords both respect and awe to those able to accumulate vast quantities of this magical stuff. Many, indeed, confuse "wealthy", with "brilliant". Yet, is this conflation a necessary truth?

There are many ways to become wealthy and not all of them involve great brilliance - in fact, most of them involve little more than doing what someone else has done, before, with a better marketing plan in place. I could say, "Look at Microsoft.", but I won't. In short, being rich does not mean being a genius. Nor does its corrollary apply: being poor does not mean one is dumb.

This latter point is essential to grasp. You see, I have recently received a letter from an American pointing out that, in her country, the poor are discounted on the issue of giftedness: no-one believes that a gifted child could emerge from a poor family - and so they are often overlooked. This is a very odd take on the issue of giftedness and shows that those who think so are unaware that wealth and IQ are not strongly correlated. There are rich bright people, yes - but there are also dumb rich people - and poor bright people - and poor dumb people (perhaps not the best combination, that one).

Giftedness is not a measure of wealth - it is a measure of mind - and great minds may emerge in the most unpromising of circumstances. History can teach us much here. I have already written of Carl Friedrich Gauss - a great child prodigy and a great genius level mathematician. What I did not stress enough, perhaps, was that his family were a very poor one. His father was a stone mason - a manual worker - and had the limited resources one expects of manual workers in most societies. Yet, this did not stop the young Gauss from being born a prodigy, and turning out to be the "greatest mathematician of his Age", according to many of his peers.

Another great mathematician, born in poverty, was Srinavasa Ramanujan. Born in 1887 in abject circumstances, he nursed a brilliance for mathematics by his own private efforts. He only emerged into prominence on writing a letter to G.H Hardy, the Cambridge mathematician, enclosing 120 mathematical statements of his own devising. Hardy, rather open-mindedly, invited him to Cambridge and the great young genius, was recognized. We all have something to thank him for. His work (the partition theory) is behind the operations of automatic teller machines (ATMs) and without his ideas, we would not be able to get a hold of our funds, so readily.

Both of these great men, were born poor - and both became great mathematical geniuses. Their poverty did not prevent them from being great. There are many such cases throughout history. Poverty does not connote stupidity - and wealth does not connote genius (I could bore you with cases of stupid, rich people but the living ones would sue and the dead ones are too uninteresting to bother with.)

So, to my American reader, I would like to send assurance that gifted people can, do and have emerged from poor backgrounds - and would like to urge those in America, who seek to identify gifted people, to be more open-minded in their pursuit of them. Do not assume intelligence in a rich kid - or dumbness in a poor one. Have an open mind when evaluating each and every one. For intelligence, creativity and genius, may emerge from any background, rich or poor.

(If you would like to read of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and eight months, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and one month, and Tiarnan, eighteen months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)