As far as I know, Kim Peek has never made any scientific discoveries, or had any wisdom to tell the world, in spite of being able to remember ~12k books.
It's a good reminder that knowledge does not equal intelligence or wisdom.
It's a good reminder that knowledge does not equal intelligence or wisdom.
Why is scientific discoveries even something he’s compared against? What does that have to do with the post? Do all people with excessive talents of some kind have to make scientific discoveries to prove it?
How would you even presume to have any idea whether Kim had wisdom to share? Wisdom is very different from scientific discoveries, and why would anyone know that except himself or his family? How hard did you try to find whether he had wisdom to share? What if he had lots of wisdom that the rest of us couldn’t understand? Are you suggesting that someone doesn’t have wisdom unless they publish it?
Let me ask this way: do you consider yourself smart & wise? What scientific discoveries have you made, what wisdom have you told the world?
We should not draw broad conclusions about the way knowledge and intelligence work based on one person who’s in an extremely abnormal situation. In most normal people, knowledge and intelligence and wisdom are closely related, it takes knowledge (experience) to gain wisdom, it takes intelligence to formulate wisdom, and it takes wisdom to seek the kind of knowledge that can lead to intelligence. For most people, having a lot of knowledge would precipitate some wisdom automatically. Normal people spot patterns. You can’t normally have a lot of one without the others. Kim Peek is a stark outlier compared to how normal brains work.
Your comment also hints at a cultural narrative that is common but not true, where people tend to see someone with extraordinary talents and “remind” everyone that it also means there must be some extraordinary deficiencies there too, because balance. There are some people that have extreme memory and are still smarter and more accomplished than the average person. Marilu Henner is a good example of that. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilu_Henner
It's not about balance. It's about what you can do with it or did with it.
https://www.storypick.com/kim-ung-yong/
The guy actually had a productive career as a civil engineer and had a decent publication record after being exploited as a grunt differential equation solver at NASA for 10 years while a teenager.
So, we don't tend to remember facts for the sake of facts. This obviously isn't always true, but for vast amounts of information, it would be very difficult to remember single "nodes" of information without having some connection to other information.
Memory contestants use this to their advantage, by creating some sense of story and/or place to attach the otherwise arbitrary information, like digits or cards, to.
I'm sure he could have done a PhD like anyone else.