I should also say that I strongly believe that enthusiasm is a definitional component to brains, at least within certain ranges of both scales. PhD students in my world range from bright to brilliant. The bright ones are the ones that don't make it. I'm increasingly convinced that the missing ingredient is a kind of enthusiasm (passion, drive, curiosity, there's lots of ways it can be shaped) that it's just not possible to be brilliant without. I don't think the brilliant ones come to us with more brains our knowledge than the bright ones, but something about how they engage with the learning is what makes the difference.
The same thing is true of people who have worked with me or for me. I identify the difference was stick-to-it-ness. At this point in my career, I'll take a medium-bright person who is enthusiastic and dilligent over a really bright person who isn't. The former just gets more done and is easier to supervise or mentor.
Then think of a group. My experience is that groups achieve more if they're composed mostly of medium-bright and dilligent, with a scattering of really bright acting as a spark.
Further there's almost no amount of brains that can make up for bad attitude. For rule-breaking, yes; often it takes an iconoclastic outlook to make true breakthroughs - either academic or in instituting a new procedure/analysis. (I would like to hear of RL examples of brains being worth a whopping big amount of bad attitude.)
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branchandroot
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Date: 2012-06-13 04:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-06-13 11:53 pm (UTC)Then think of a group. My experience is that groups achieve more if they're composed mostly of medium-bright and dilligent, with a scattering of really bright acting as a spark.
Further there's almost no amount of brains that can make up for bad attitude. For rule-breaking, yes; often it takes an iconoclastic outlook to make true breakthroughs - either academic or in instituting a new procedure/analysis. (I would like to hear of RL examples of brains being worth a whopping big amount of bad attitude.)