Within hours of his demise in 1955, Albert Einstein’s brain was salvaged, sliced into 240 pieces and stored in jars for safekeeping. Since then, researchers have weighed, measured and otherwise inspected these biological specimens of genius in hopes of uncovering clues to Einstein’s spectacular intellect.
Their cerebral explorations are part of a century-long effort to uncover the neural basis of high intelligence or, in children, giftedness. Traditionally, 2 to 5 percent of kids qualify as gifted, with the top 2 percent scoring above 130 on an intelligence quotient (IQ) test. (The statistical average is 100. See the box on the opposite page.) A high IQ increases the probability of success in various academic areas. Children who are good at reading, writing or math also tend to be facile at the other two areas and to grow into adults who are skilled at diverse intellectual tasks [see “Solving the IQ Puzzle,” by James R. Flynn; Scientific American Mind, October/November 2007].
Most studies show that smarter brains are typically bigger—at least in certain locations. Part of Einstein’s parietal lobe (at the top of the head, behind the ears) was 15 percent wider than the same region was in 35 men of normal cognitive ability, according to a 1999 study by researchers at McMaster University in Ontario. This area is thought to be critical for visual and mathematical thinking. It is also within the constellation of brain regions fingered as important for superior cognition. These neural territories include parts of the parietal and frontal lobes as well as a structure called the anterior cingulate.
But the functional consequences of such enlargement are controversial. In 1883 English anthropologist and polymath Sir Francis Galton dubbed intelligence an inherited feature of an efficiently functioning central nervous system. Since then, neuroscientists have garnered support for this efficiency hypothesis using modern neuroimaging techniques. They found that the brains of brighter people use less energy to solve certain problems than those of people with lower aptitudes do.
In other cases, scientists have observed higher neuronal power consumption in individuals with superior mental capacities. Musical prodigies may also sport an unusually energetic brain [see box on page 67]. That flurry of activity may occur when a task is unusually challenging, some researchers speculate, whereas a gifted mind might be more efficient only when it is pondering a relatively painless puzzle.
Despite the quest to unravel the roots of high IQ, researchers say that people often overestimate the significance of intellectual ability [see “Coaching the Gifted Child,” by Christian Fischer]. Studies show that practice and perseverance contribute more to accomplishment than being smart does.
And thus ends the Democratic and Republican Party’s back-to-back political conventions. You laughed, you cried, you yawned - a lot. You changed the channel to watch something interesting. Unless your remote was broken… then you were screwed. Just be glad two more stilted political rituals have been checked off the list.
As you read this, Sam and I are driving a 16′ rental truck up Interstate 5 towards our new home in Portland, Oregon. I can’t make any guarantees about when we’ll be able to return to the binary lands of Inter Net (there’s always Twitter!), but once we do, I’ll finally be able to write and run Re:Generator with zeal again. There’s much to do, and I’ll be glad to have the leeway to do it. Until then, I leave Re:Generator in the capable - if lazy - hands of its writers.
John McCain lived in a box. The man was in a box, thinking about America, wishing he was in an American box and seeing clearly in the darkness. Only when the lights are turned off and Fred Thompson is narrating can you truly understand this great nation.
John McCain has scars. Barack Obama doesn’t have scars on his pretty Nubian body. He spent most of his life in his ivory tower sipping lattes and “community organizing,” whatever limpwristed activity that is. There were probably gays involved. They were probably plotting the downfall of America with Liberal union organizers while they performed acts that would make God’s eyes bleed.
But John McCain never made God’s eyes bleed. God wept sweet, salty tears of joy when John refused to be released from the Viet Cong’s captivity because he was a man, a hero and definitely not a homosexual. God wept even harder (as he is wont to do when he thinks about how proud he is of the Republican party) when the demigod left his first wife, who committed the sin of getting disfigured and fat after a car accident, for beer heiress Cindy Lou Hensley, who God thinks is totally a babe.
John McCain surrounds himself with babes. Indeed, with the addition of Sarah Palin he’s started his own harem. God gave him the go-ahead, because John is easily as righteous as an Old Testament prophet, and they got pussy like nobody’s business. Heck, he’s even more righteous, because they weren’t Christian.
John McCain hates war. Hates it. But if he has to start one on manufactured evidence he will, whether he’s bombing Iran, Guam, India, Laos, Tunisia or one of the other, weaker countries that aren’t recognizably European. He’ll take America’s money back too, because money can’t get them to love us. But the bombs will.
John McCain actually likes Mexicans and strove to improve the country’s immigration laws before he ran for president. …even the greatest of heroes have character flaws.
John McCain will not raise taxes. He thinks raising taxes is worse than walking in on your grandparents fisting a donkey. He doesn’t know much about economics, but he knows enough to know that raising the taxes of the middle class (who have between one and four million dollars, and only own three to five houses) and the rich (who own people like ranchers own cattle) would be a very bad thing. He knows America needs to stop whining and start not whining, which is the secret to beating the recession.
John McCain is the only man with the experience for the job of president. If Barack Obama is dangerously unqualified for the job, McCain is dangerously qualified. Dangerous, for the terrorists, who he will strike down at the gates of Hell with a bludgeon that has “POW” written on it. Dangerous, for Liberals, who won’t be able to smother newborn babies with American flags they’ve been using as toilet paper. Dangerous, for Vietnam, which he has been plotting his revenge on for thirty years.
Vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin this November, unless your hatred of America runs so deep you’d rather see some uppity celebrity turn the White House into a crack den.
