Hacker News Reader

Comment by Asdfbla | Hacker News Reader

Is the hypothesis that seems important for the article - that civilization was mostly advanced by lone neurodiverse geniuses - actually true? Sounds dubious, but who knows. At least modern science seems to be a very collaborative affair.

Was there ever a poll or study to find out if university faculty as a whole actually is scared to offend people or threatened by some hypothetical PC police? I would imagine that the debate is only relevant for the social sciences anyway, since you shouldn't have opportunities to offend people in more technical subjects anyway.

View on HN

Civilization is advanced by a collaboration of many, many people.

Yet, often some novel ideas come from people who not only have them, but also - are not afraid to talk against mainstream assumptions. I go into this topic in http://crastina.se/theres-no-projects-like-side-projects/ (with examples of: Albert Einstein, John Bell, John Carmack).

Some of the drier subjects in my CS degree were considerably enhanced by quirky lecturers at least trying to make a joke here and there.

Did you read the bit in the article about teaching feedback?

To be clear I am not arguing for the right to make racist, sexist jokes etc in a place of work. I am pointing out that if I was in the neuro-diverse lecturer's shoes, fear of offending somebody I don't know for reasons I don't understand would probably dampen my teaching style.

No, but it mainly points out that some of the people which are globally seen as geniuses that advanced the world, with names that are written down in the history books - Newton, Einstein, Jobs - all had neurodivergent disorders.

It indicates that those people wouldn't have fit in in modern universities, but I don't know enough about those people, whether they were politically incorrect or whatever. I know Jobs was a dick (based on reading a biography), but again, not sure if that would've been different if he lived in the age of college speech rules or code of conducts - I think he wouldn't have given a fuck and would've done his things regardless.

The article mentions Newton too, who, or so I read recently, published some pretty blasphemous stuff - e.g. agreeing with the Copernican view of the universe - but managed to add some nuance and such at the end of his treatsie, making sure to point out that God works in mysterious ways and such.

"Newton, Einstein, Jobs - all had neurodivergent disorders"

There are many people who claim that.

Is it true?

Because every time I've looked into it, it comes across as wishful thinking. It's almost like "<famous person> paid attention to detail and didn't have a normal social life so must have been on the autistic spectrum." What are the diagnostic tests for evaluating neurodivergent disorders of historical figures, and how accurate are they?

Next, I don't know how you can say those people "wouldn't have fit in in modern universities".

First, there's the obvious problem the historic Newton of 1700 could not be employed by a modern university, so you mean something different than that. What do you mean?

Second, there are two issues: going to college as a student and doing research at a college. Jobs went to Reed College for two years, but unlike Einstein was never a professor.

Third, Einstein went to the Swiss Federal Polytechnic. Einstein was able to live under the strict policies they had in 1896. Why wouldn't the modern Einstein not be able to live under the modern Harvard restrictions?

("Strict policies"? I quote from http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/HistTopics/ETH_history.h... :

> the Polytechnic's governing bodies maintained strict discipline and punished transgressions accordingly. Polytechnic students were not granted the same freedom as their University counterparts, both with regard to academic matters and expected code of conduct. As a result of these differences a rivalry between the two different cohorts developed, which even led to duels [5, p. 106-109]. In 1881, partly due to a petition by its alumni association GEP, the Polytechnic revised some of its regulations. Students were given more flexibility in their final year of study, ... More comprehensive reforms were only implemented in the early 20th century.

That is, even during Einstein's time, the Polytechnic required stricter discipline than Swiss universities at that time.)

"The article mentions Newton .. agreeing with the Copernican view of the universe ..."

You have confused Galileo and 'Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems' with Newton.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com