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18. Answer the questions to the text from Exercise 17.
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18. Answer the questions to the text from Exercise 17.
1. Neuroeconomics is a field of study which seeks to …
a. cause a change in how scientists understand brain chemistry.
b. understand how good decisions are made in the brain.
c. understand how the brain is linked to achievement in competitive fields.
d. trace the specific firing patterns of neurones in different areas of the brain.
2. According to the writer, iconoclasts are distinctive because …
a. they create unusual brain circuits.
b. their brains function differently.
c. their personalities are distinctive.
d. they make decisions easily.
3. According to the writer, the brain works efficiently because …
a. it uses the eyes quickly.
b. it interprets data logically.
c. it generates its own energy.
d. it relies on previous events.
4. The writer says that perception is…
a. a combination of photons and sound waves.
b. a reliable product of what your senses transmit.
c. a result of brain processes.
d. a process we are usually conscious of.
5. According to the writer an iconoclastic thinker …
a. centralizes perceptual thinking in one part of the brain.
b. avoids cognitive traps.
c. has a brain that is hardwired for learning.
d. has more opportunities than the average person.
6. Thinking like a successful iconoclast is demanding because it...
1. 1. requires both perceptual and social intelligence skills.
2. 2. requires both perceptual and social intelligence skills.
3. 3. leaves one open to criticism and rejection.
4. 4. involves understanding how organizations manage people.
7. What does the underlined phrase 'broke new ground’ in line 44 mean?
a. a. built on the work of others.
b. b. produced unusual or unexpected results.
c. c. proved earlier theories on the subject to be false.
d. d. achieved something that had not been done before.
8. What was most significant about Leuthardt and Schalk’s work?
a. a. They succeeded in grouping certain phonemes into words.
b. b. They linked the production of phonemes to recognizable brain activity.
c. c. Their methods worked for speakers of languages other than English.
d. d. Their subjects were awake during the course of their experiments.
9. What does the writer conclude about mind reading?
1. 1. It could become a form of entertainment.
2. 2. It may contribute to studies on language acquisition.
3. 3. Most people are keenly awaiting the possibility of doing it.
4. 4. Mobile technologies may become unreliable because of it.
10. What is the main purpose of the writer of this passage?
a. a. to give an account of the developments in mind-reading research.
b. b. to show how scientists’ attitudes towards mind reading have changed.
c. c. to explain why mind-reading research should be given more funding.
d. d. to fully explore the arguments for and against mind reading.
4. OUTASTANDING SCIENTISTS, THEIR SCIENTIFIC PATH.
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DEFENDING MASTER’S THESIS
19. Read the text and explain the nature of genius.
The Nature of Genius
There has always been an interest in geniuses and prodigies. The word ‘genius’, from the Latin gens (= family) and the term ‘genius’, meaning ‘begetter’, comes from the early Roman cult of a divinity as the head of the family. In its earliest form, genius was concerned with the ability of the head of the family, the paterfamilias, to perpetuate himself. Gradually, genius came to represent a person's characteristics and thence an individual's highest attributes derived from his ‘genius’ or guiding spirit. Today, people still look to stars or genes, astrology or genetics, in the hope of finding the source of exceptional abilities or personal characteristics.
The concept of genius and of gifts has become part of our folk culture, and attitudes are ambivalent towards them. We envy the gifted and mistrust them. In the mythology of giftedness, it is popularly believed that if people are talented in one area, they must be defective in another, that intellectuals are impractical, that prodigies burn too brightly too soon and burn out, that gifted people are eccentric, that they are physical weaklings, that there's a thin line between genius and madness, that genius runs in families, that the gifted are so clever they don't need special help, that giftedness is the same as having a high IQ, that some races are more intelligent or musical or mathematical than others, that genius goes unrecognized and unrewarded, that adversity makes men wise or that people with gifts have a responsibility to use them. Language has been enriched with such terms as ‘highbrow’, ‘egghead’, ‘blue-stocking’, ‘wiseacre’, ‘know-all’, ‘boffin’ and, for many, ‘intellectual’ is a term of denigration.
The nineteenth century saw considerable interest in the nature of genius, and produced not a few studies of famous prodigies. Perhaps for us today, two of the most significant aspects of most of these studies of genius are the frequency with which early encouragement and teaching by parents and tutors had beneficial effects on the intellectual, artistic or musical development of the children but caused great difficulties of adjustment later in their lives, and the frequency with which abilities went unrecognized by teachers and schools. However, the difficulty with the evidence produced by these studies, fascinating as they are in collecting together anecdotes and apparent similarities and exceptions, is that they are not what we would today call norm-referenced. In other words, when, for instance, information is collated about early illnesses, methods of upbringing, schooling, etc., we must also take into account information from other historical sources about how common or exceptional these were at the time. For instance, infant mortality was high and life expectancy much shorter than today, home tutoring was common in the families of the nobility and wealthy, bullying and corporal punishment were common at the best independent schools and, for the most part, the cases studied were members of the privileged classes. It was only with the growth of pediatrics and psychology in the twentieth century that studies could be carried out on a more objective, if still not always very scientific, basis.
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Geniuses, however, they are defined, are but the peaks which stand out through the mist of history and are visible to the particular observer from his or her particular vantage point. Change the observers and the vantage points, clear away some of the mist, and a different lot of peaks appear. Genius is a term we apply to those whom we recognise for their outstanding achievements and who stand near the end of the continuum of human abilities which reaches back through the mundane and mediocre to the incapable. There is still much truth in Dr Samuel Johnson's observation, The true genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction'. We may disagree with the 'general', for we doubt if all musicians of genius could have become scientists of genius or vice versa, but there is no doubting the accidental determination which nurtured or triggered their gifts into those channels into which they have poured their powers so successfully. Along the continuum of abilities are hundreds of thousands of gifted men and women, boys and girls.
What we appreciate, enjoy or marvel at in the works of genius or the achievements of prodigies are the manifestations of skills or abilities which are similar to, but so much superior to, our own. But that their minds are not different from our own is demonstrated by the fact that the hard-won discoveries of scientists like Kepler or Einstein become the commonplace knowledge of schoolchildren and the once outrageous shapes and colors of an artist like Paul Klee so soon appear on the fabrics we wear. This does not minimize the supremacy of their achievements, which outstrip our own as the sub-four-minute milers outstrip our jogging.
To think of geniuses and the gifted as having uniquely different brains is only reasonable if we accept that each human brain is uniquely different. The purpose of instruction is to make us even more different from one another, and in the process of being educated, we can learn from the achievements of those mom gifted than ourselves. But before we try to emulate geniuses or encourage our children to do so we should note that some of the things we learn from them may prove unpalatable. We may envy their achievements and fame, but we should also recognize the price they may have paid in terms of perseverance, single-mindedness, dedication, restrictions on their personal lives, the demands upon their energies and time, and how often they had to display great courage to preserve their integrity or to make their way to the top.
Genius and giftedness are relative descriptive terms of no real substance. We may, at best, give them some precision by defining them and placing them in a context but, whatever we do, we should never delude ourselves into believing that gifted children or geniuses are different from the rest of humanity, save in the degree to which they have developed the performance of their abilities.
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