This is a fascinating question on which people will have a wide range of opinions, though no one really knows the answer. The best we can do is to speculate, based on our observation of particular cases. Studies of identical twins raised apart have shown that there is a genetic component to intelligence, yet our knowledge of how this genetic potential interacts with our environment in creating our ultimate IQ is still a question that requires research. In 1946, the British mathematician and scientist, J. B. S. Haldane opined:
It is, of course, possible that the interaction between nature and nurture is of a simpler type in the determination of human intelligence than in that of the milk yield of cattle or the seed yield of wheat plants. But even a thoroughgoing materialist might well doubt this. Unless it is true, we cannot in general say that A has a greater innate ability than B. A might do better in environment X, and B in environment Y. Had I been born in a Glasgow slum I should very probably have become a chronic drunkard, and if so, I might by now be a good deal less intelligent than many men of a stabler temperament but less possibilities of intellectual achievement in a favourable environment. If this is so it is clearly misleading to speak of the inheritance of intellectual ability. This does not mean that we must give up the analysis of its determination in despair. It means that the task will be harder than many people believe.
Indeed, untangling the interaction between intellectual potential and environment is very difficult because these two factors are convoluted. However, we can look at particular cases of people who emerged from what would seem to be an intellectual wasteland to the pinnacle of intellectual achievement.
One morning in 1913, Godfrey Hardy, the distinguished number theorist at Cambridge University, received a large untidy envelope adorned with Indian stamps. Inside the envelope were pages of rough notes containing weird and unfamiliar looking mathematical theorems and identities–products of the intuition of a brilliant but unschooled mind. The originator of the letter was a poor 26-year-old clerk from Madras, India named Srinivasa Ramanujan who was living with his wife on twenty pounds a year. So impressive was the manuscript, that Hardy secured money for Ramanujan to visit Cambridge to collaborate with him in mathematical research.
Ramanujan’s deep intuitive understanding of numbers and their representation as infinite series spawned identities that were previously unknown to the world of mathematics. One of the remarkable infinite series he discovered for the reciprocal of pi is:
where the exclamation marks denote factorials (as well as excitement). Especially interesting is that this infinite series converges very quickly, with the first term yielding the correct value of pi to 6 decimal digits. Hardy had no idea how or where this arcane formula had emerged in the mind of this relatively unsophisticated youth. Though Ramanujan had no formal schooling in mathematics and didn’t understand mathematical rigor, nor have a firm grasp on the concept of “proof,” Hardy regarded him as a “natural genius,” because his mathematical intuition seemed to be unfettered by the constraints of formal training. In an unguarded moment, Hardy wrote of his protegé, “Had he been better educated, he would have been less Ramanujan.” In the seven years that followed, Ramanujan and Hardy established one of the most successful collaborations in the history of mathematics. Then, in a tragic turn of events, Ramanujan contracted tuberculosis while at the peak of his creativity and died.
In 1991, American biographer Robert Kanigel celebrated the genius of Ramanujan in his award-winning book, The Man Who Knew Infinity: A Life of the Genius Ramanujan (made into a movie in 2015.) The story of a poor boy from the intellectual backwater of southern India, with a modicum of formal instruction, rising to the top of the mathematical world gives us pause for thought. Does it show that genius will be served, and that environment plays a minor role in intellectual attainment? Or does it suggest that genius is raw potential that can only reach its full flower when nurtured by a strong mentor or a rich environment?
There are several stories of genius that emerges like a fragrant flower in a weed patch, prompting us to ask, “What kind of environment is ideal for the nurture of brilliance?” I plan to share more stories in future posts.
