Dean Keith Simonton > Quotes

“Geniuses are those who have the intelligence, enthusiasm, and endurance to acquire the needed expertise in a broadly valued domain of achievement and who then make contributions to that field that are considered by peers to be both original and highly exemplary.”
― Dean Keith Simonton

“Even worse, those with accomplishments worthy of the designation
"genius" do not always make the IQ cut. When Terman first used the IQ test to select a sample of child geniuses, he unknowingly excluded a special child whose IQ did not make the grade. Yet a few decades later that overlooked talent received the Nobel Prize in physics: William Shockley, the cocreator of the transistor. Ironically, not one of the more than 1,500 children who qualified according to his IQ criterion received so high an honor as adults. Clearly, a Nobel laureate has much greater claim to the term genius than those whose achievements did not win them such applause.”
― Dean Keith Simonton, Origins of Genius: Darwinian Perspectives on Creativity

“the development of creative talent requires that the home feature enriching experiences that encourage the diversification of the intellect. The most diverse environments will be those of artistic creators, whereas the homes of scientific creators will fall somewhere between those of the artists
and those of individuals who fail to display any pronounced levels of creativity.”
― Dean Keith Simonton, Origins of Genius: Darwinian Perspectives on Creativity

“Enrichment. In chapter 1, I mentioned Lewis Terman's classic longitudinal study of over a thousand intellectually gifted children. Among the mounds of data he collected about these high-IQ children was information on the quality of their home environments. Their parents tended to have higher than average levels of formal education, and at least one parent tended to work at an intellectual profession, such as a doctor or lawyer. The homes of these bright children were also likely to contain private libraries well stocked with books of all kinds. Other studies of the gifted have found similar results. The parents highly value learning and supply their homes with intellectually and culturally stimulating magazines, games, and similar materials. Family outings will often include visits to museums, exhibits, galleries, libraries, and other places that stimulate intellectual development. Moreover, studies of eminent creators report similar findings of geniuses originating from such enriched family environments.”
― Dean Keith Simonton, Origins of Genius: Darwinian Perspectives on Creativity