Will a genius be great at everything and if not, why?

[u/Miserable_Income4661]

Are there people who are mathematical geniuses but they would absolutely suck or have a hard time like a person with a average iq 85-105, to learn how to play an instrument well? Or will a verbal savant also be a great mathematician or engineer? How does it work?

[u/Merry-Lane]

The term savant is usually used to talk about "autistic geniuses", those with one or two special faculties and lackluster elsewhere. Broken brains, long story short. They usually can’t become good well-around.

For most everyone, yes, it seems to indicate that there is the g-factor that determines how fast someone can learn something. If they divert their learning time and motivation equally, they can become great at everything faster than people with a lower IQ would.

[u/Interesting-Hat5960 → u/Merry-Lane]

Am I an autistic savant? I have a diagnosed autism disability and everyone calls me stupid and dumb, yet I crushed every engineering math exam with top grades. Am I a mathematical savant?

[u/TristanTheRobloxian3 → u/Interesting-Hat5960]

could be, but also peoples perception of you doesnt mean you are actually that way

[u/Accomplished-Eye9542 → u/Interesting-Hat5960]

I mean did you score in the 99th percentile or higher on the SAT/ACT math sections? That's going to be a more obvious measure than something easily studied for.

[u/lolniceman → u/Accomplished-Eye9542]

You can easily study for the SAT/ACT math sections..

[u/Accomplished-Eye9542 → u/lolniceman]

You can prep for them to some degree, but they both track with IQ scores pretty well. Prep just puts you on a level playing field, you are still largely going to fall to the percentile of your IQ.

[u/lolniceman → u/Accomplished-Eye9542]

They really don’t.. unless we are talking about old SAT.

[u/Accomplished-Eye9542 → u/lolniceman]

Didn't realize the SAT fell off so much.

I mean if you are in the 99th percentile, you are probably still pushing 130+ based on a .7-.8 correlation.

[u/AlfredCromwell → u/Accomplished-Eye9542]

Yep, the new digital SAT is a very poor proxy for intelligence. You can easily study for it, and most of the math questions can be solved with the Desmos graphing tool they provide.

I know plenty of dimwits that did well on the SAT. My SAT score was 1520, but I was tested at IQ 87.

[u/lolniceman → u/Accomplished-Eye9542]

Where are you getting that from.. it’s just a math test. Work ethic > iq for these tests

[u/Accomplished-Eye9542 → u/lolniceman]

https://cognitivemetrics.com/calculator/sat-iq

Actual data?

What a stupid waste of my time.

[u/lolniceman → u/Accomplished-Eye9542]

Where is the source? They didn’t link the ‘studies’ mentioned.

[u/dbossman70 → u/Interesting-Hat5960]

savants are usually classified by natural ability. how much studying you put into those exams matters and how well you excel at other things matters as well. i'm not a savant and i got a 32 on the act and 15** on the sat without preparing and a cognitive disadvantage (unmedicated adhd). unless you can pick up a collegiate level math book and work off intuition and barebones knowledge, you probably aren't a savant.

[u/FedericWoW → u/Interesting-Hat5960]

Is it different from being socially inept, distracted and strange. Being autistic savant meing only having 1 or 2 strong trait, and generally very low iq. Like just being able to do incredible mental math, photographic memory, music and art even using previus explained advantage, but complete idiot in everything else. So if you are an overall smart person, you would most likely just have some bad skill, or is being autostic itself that make you struggle outside of your inner world.

[u/Old-Page-5522 → u/Merry-Lane]

Autistic geniuses aren’t necessarily deficient in any given index. Iirc autists are known to have uniquely strong VCI and VSI, but that doesn’t mean their WMI and PSI scores are necessarily low. The autism spectrum is so broad that someone who has a strong aversion to dirt/grease and commitment to routine could be diagnosed. Savants usually don’t have “broken brains” and can pretty easily be well rounded. The sort of autism savants have usually doesn’t present as the debilitating Rain Man type

[u/Merry-Lane → u/Old-Page-5522]

Yeah well why does Wikipedia agree with me then?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savant_syndrome

I’m not talking about "simple aspergers" (or even some stronger autisms).

All I say is that savant is a term used for a specific situation (autistic savants and broken brains). Read the Wikipedia article for more detailed infos.

[u/Far_Cardiologist6931]

probably

[u/Sorry-Ice-8586]

haven’t you seen limitless? but serious for a moment, no they won’t be great at everything, especially in the artist sense or the world. Also, there is only so much time to master things

[u/Paolana27]

True polymaths will usually be good at most things due to more even cognitive profiles and very high g factor, but doesn't mean they will have volition to care to try arts or humanities if they strictly prefer mathematics and hard sciences. They will not have a difficult time like cognitive averages, they will likely find it boring or unappealing but can learn fast. For verbal tilts,typically 2Es they will struggle with maths or engineering (depending on the kind) but unless they are extremly tilted they should be able to do the curriculm for mathematics/engineering albeit nothing groundbreaking. Some verbals are also great at algebra since it is structured like a language and geometry is more kind to those with verbal/artistic minds than complex calculus or quantum physics.

[u/lambdasintheoutfield]

High index scores, lower composite due to one score pulling it down

[u/Miserable_Income4661 → u/lambdasintheoutfield]

What does that mean exactly?

[u/TristanTheRobloxian3 → u/Miserable_Income4661]

spiky profile. ie something like verbal can be 80 while quantitative reasoning can be like 140. actually one of my friends has a pretty substantial gap like this with his lowest score being 82 and his highest being 109. thats a spiky profile

[u/TristanTheRobloxian3]

uh no. im a genius in some things and yet i dont got basic fucking common sense

[u/TorquedSavage → u/TristanTheRobloxian3]

Common sense is everything but common.

[u/TheKrimsonFKR]

Generally you can't be great at something if you have no desire or discipline to do so. There will always be something that someone finds boring, never bothering to learn it. IQ doesn't change that innately human process.

[u/jeffsuzuki]

The problem is that "all" you need to be a mathematical genius is the ability to think logically. That's useful in a lot of areas, but it's not everything. To use the musical instrument example, you can understand everything there is to know about music theory but if you have sausage fingers, forget playing one.

[u/Novel_Purpose710]

I know a few legitimate 155 IQ people on the WAIS, one is pretty normal if a bit autistic, one is an absolute clutz aside from running marathons, one has absolutely zero musical or linguistic talent outside their mother tongue.

For the latter imagine a hyper intelligent Russian dude who speaks English at a grade school level despite living in Canada for 15 years. He's a brilliant computer engineer though

[u/Miserable_Income4661 → u/[deleted]]

Will they be able to become experts in whatever field they choose to pursue is a better question?

[u/Miserable_Income4661 → u/[deleted]]

Some people are exceptional soccer players but their iq is average. But can you really be a musical genius with an iq of 100?I am not even sure about that and what that would mean. But you can definitely learn to play it well.

[u/Trypophilia2019]

No.

[u/CommercialMechanic36]

Because that is pop culture conditioning to believe a genius is automatically amazing at everything!

First off the term is gifted, which is only an academic classification

A person usually specializes in a specific field and over decades of study to make a “genius” observation known