The Riddle of Einstein's Brain

Myth and meaning

Modern neuroscience teaches us that our thoughts and emotions are rooted in the brain. But can we apply the same scientific logic to a word we still struggle to define? 'Genius' comes from Roman mythology, originally meaning a protecting spirit of a person or place. With this superstitious background, you could argue that the word has no place in science at all.

Perhaps geniuses are artificial creations, inventions designed to satisfy a deep-seated social need, a standard to give focus to our own goals and desires. Human history, its politics, science, literature and art, is a story of revolutions, of one paradigm replacing another. Are not the architects of these cultural leaps the ones we choose to anoint as geniuses – the human landmarks that give structure to our culture and our history?

Of course, it would be foolish to deny that many of these so-called geniuses have been blessed with special talents, innate gifts denied to the average Joe. But the expression of a talent must also depend on chance and circumstance. How many people have come and gone who could have shone but for events beyond their control? Would Einstein have made his mark on history had he not read Hume, had his parents not encouraged an interest in music, had he been born in a different time and place? He can only be judged a genius within the context of the society and the culture in which he was raised, and by the choices he made along the way.

We like the term genius, but it remains to be seen whether this enigmatic word and its concept remains intact after it's subjected to further scrutiny in the future.

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