Brains vs brawn

History's most eminent geniuses share a common trait: most would have been picked last for school sports teams

By Misty Harris, Canwest News Service


Researchers from the University of California discovered a negative association between IQ and physical health in youth.

Researchers from the University of California discovered a negative association between IQ and physical health in youth.
Photograph by: Photos.com,

Some of history's most eminent geniuses share a common trait, aside from their ability to make mere mortals look bad: most would have been picked last for school sports teams.

Analyzing archival data buried for more than 70 years, researchers from the University of California discovered a negative association between IQ and physical health in youth. Their study, which appears in the journal Psychological Science, draws on data concerning 282 geniuses, including Voltaire, Abraham Lincoln, Rene Descartes, Isaac Newton and Michelangelo.

"We cannot always assume that good goes with good," says study co-author Dean Keith Simonton, a professor of psychology. "We don't necessarily have the smart, stable, and fit on one side and the dumb, unstable, and sick on the other."

The study examined historical geniuses in 10 achievement categories: politicians, revolutionaries, military commanders, religious leaders, scientists, philosophers, informative writers, imaginative writers, composers and artists.

Across all groups — although less so for military men — Simonton and co-author Anna V. Song found superior intelligence was linked to inferior physical health during youth. While this could be a result of the sample's extreme selectivity, the researchers say it may also be that being "sickly" in youth helps accelerate intellectual development.

The philosopher Descartes, for example, was in such poor health as a boy that his teachers allowed him to sleep until noon. He later said it was during those morning hours that he came up with all his best ideas.

Horatio Nelson, the Royal Navy's most revered sailor, might never have been accepted into the British navy and become the hero of the Battle of Trafalgar were it not for a family connection, as he was a feeble, sickly child. Likewise, the writer Charles Dickens was prone to sickness and violent spasms as a child, both of which kept him away from physical games and glued to books.

"Instead of spending all that time on the basketball court or baseball field, the kid becomes the nerdy bookworm, joining science clubs and serving on the knowledge bowl team," explains Simonton. But while these characteristics might hold true in childhood, he adds, they don't necessarily continue into the genius' maturity.

"The genius CEO who was always picked last in gym class as a child might later become quite the terror on the tennis court."

The study uses data gathered for Catharine Cox's widely recognized genius studies in the early 1900s. Simonton notes that Cox would have been displeased with his findings since she strongly believed good goes with good — a concept that generally holds true for the average person but not for those Simonton calls "the cream of the cream of the cream."

Engineer John Saringer, whose medical devices have helped millions of people mitigate the effects of immobility, spent his childhood in and out of hospitals due to chronic health problems. Although Stouffville, Ont.-based Saringer says this made him "an outcast" among his peers, he believes the time alone put him on the path to success.

"By 15, I was playing blindfold chess against four players at once — and winning — taking charge of my own life very rapidly to become an empowered, financially independent adult," says Saringer, who was on his way to his first million by the age of 20.

Dan Hoch, principal of an elementary school in Airdrie, Alta., says the study echoes author and pop sociologist Malcolm Gladwell's recent conclusion that 10,000 hours of practice is the critical threshold for providing people the experience needed to excel at something.

"If I'd had poor health as a kid, perhaps I would've been more housebound, done more reading and taken my studies more seriously," says Hoch, a lifelong athlete who recently learned his IQ is in the 99.9th percentile. "As it happened, I did well enough in school but I wasn't a high achiever."

Bob Yewchuk, an officer with Mensa Canada, based in Mississauga, Ont., whose IQ falls within the top two per cent of society, sees a bit of himself in the study but suspects physical prowess is just one small part of an achievement puzzle shaped by everything from parental influence to access, to resources.

"I was not an athletic person, partially due to my physical stature — or lack of it," says Yewchuk, "but I hesitate to draw any conclusions from that."

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