You’d need to think something like geniuses tend to come from families with genius potential, and these families also tend to be in the top couple of percent by income.
It would line up with claims made by Gregory Clark in The Son Also Rises.
To be clear, I’m not saying I agree with these claims or think this model is the most plausible one.
This seems implausible to me, unless I’m misunderstanding something.
Are all such geniuses pre-1900 assumed to come from the aristocratic classes? Why?
If no, are there many counterexamples of geniuses in the lower classes being discovered in that time by existing talent spotting mechanisms?
If yes, why would this not be the case any more post-1900, or is the claim that it is still the case?
It’s not exactly a nice conclusion.
You’d need to think something like geniuses tend to come from families with genius potential, and these families also tend to be in the top couple of percent by income.
It would line up with claims made by Gregory Clark in The Son Also Rises.
To be clear, I’m not saying I agree with these claims or think this model is the most plausible one.
Understood, thanks. Yeah, this seems like a bit of an implausible just-so story to me.