I think it was Jer who awhile back wrote something here involving the ever-influential ‘Outliers’ by Gladwell.  And I believe Jer was calling attention to the Canadian hockey dilemma, where birth dates reflect success.

Truth be told I haven’t read Gladwell’s best seller, but I have been on vacation with many people who have been in the midst of reading it, so through the magical osmosis of late-night-wine and a kitchen table, I feel as though I have some authority to reference it.  If you don’t think so, humor me. Basically, I believe Gladwell is saying, Talent + Opportunity = Success. His example and equation led me to think about the larger human picture.

In particular, the advancement of medicine in the last century has allowed for a smaller pre-mature mortality rate (in particular infant mortality has dropped significantly in the last century). For the sake of argument let’s say, in the history before the 19 century, there has been around one serious, freak, genius brain recognized a century: Shakespeare, Mozart, Einstein….  Think about how low the probability is of that mind making it to maturity in centuries past, let alone finding literacy to flourish. How many Einstein minds’ do you think never made it out of the crib or off the kitchen table? Do you think Stephen Hawking would have survived to pen his theories if he was born 200 hundred years ago, 400 hundred years ago? To think of the potential loss of advancement to the human condition is devastating.

With the higher life expectancy of modern times, I think the probability of being blessed by more Einsteins, Picassos, Shevchenkos…greatly improves.

With a higher probability of education also in play, we might be looking at a freak genius mind enlightening humanity, say, every ten years. Who knows? The certainty is that the probability will go up.  And the genius all compounds on the genius of before. The next century is going to make the last millennium look like a McDonalds Playland.