The author laments the rate at which lesser math students leave mathematics, because they are behind the very best.
One of the most painful aspects of teaching mathematics is
seeing my students damaged by the cult of the genius. That
cult tells students that it's not worth doing math unless
you're the best at math—because those special few are the
only ones whose contributions really count. We don't treat
any other subject that way. ... But I see promising young
mathematicians quit every year because someone in their
range of vision is "ahead" of them.
But this is a rational calculation, precisely because mathematics is institutionalized as a highly competitive discipline. If those who score high on the SAT at 13 are 100 times as likely to make a scientific advance as those in the remaining 99% of the population, then there should to be roughly 100 times the opportunity for lower scoring individuals to make those advances than they currently have. But the jobs in academia aren't there. Students see this and they make the rational decision to jump ship. (I was irrational and did not.) The cult tells students that there are no jobs for you unless you are the very best. And with fewer tenure track jobs in a dwindling, pedigree conscious market, the cult is correct.
Grothendieck couldn't solve a Putnam problem, incidentally. Not a contest winner. You might be interested to know what some Fields Medalists say about some prominent prodigies. That they are extremely smart, but haven't done truly major work. The facts and the gossip are no consolation: academic opportunities are overwhelmingly and increasingly weighted in favor of the prodigy.
Likewise, elite employers want to hire the math and programming contest winners. Well, if you're not one of them, it is rational to select yourself out. I've gotten calls from recruiters saying that I'd be working such winning individuals. "Will I be doing the work they're doing?" "Uh, no, you'll be doing system administration." "In that case, maybe you should hire a Nobel Laureate. I am unworthy." Cleaning the digital bedpans of the superstars is not my idea of success. "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven," as one famous antagonist put it.
As long as the STEM subjects remain a zero-sum game, with the overwhelming spoils going to the early bloomers, the winners, like the author, should be satisfied with what they have already won in an unnecessarily and destructively competitive field. The rest of us are doomed to provide them support as members of the economic precariat at slave wages, if we are foolhardy enough to remain in academia. There is no honor in adding to someone else's power law distribution, and I urge the contest winners to hire Nobel Laureates and other members of their own rank to do their support work, and not add to their winnings by exploiting the unworthy persons they elbowed out.
(I did earn a Ph.D. in mathematics, incidentally. This was wasted effort. When I was a toddler, apparently I impressed a child psychologist with my logic; my mother told the woman that she was an idiot for thinking that I was advanced. My experience in academia was not good--I was mostly exploited. I have decided to abandon mathematics and computer science for art.)
Is that compared to the general population overall, or a subset? It might be more informative to look at the subset that actually starts down the road of making discoveries in mathematics - maybe just people who attempt bachelors' degrees in math?
Grothendieck couldn't solve a Putnam problem, incidentally. Not a contest winner. You might be interested to know what some Fields Medalists say about some prominent prodigies. That they are extremely smart, but haven't done truly major work. The facts and the gossip are no consolation: academic opportunities are overwhelmingly and increasingly weighted in favor of the prodigy.
Likewise, elite employers want to hire the math and programming contest winners. Well, if you're not one of them, it is rational to select yourself out. I've gotten calls from recruiters saying that I'd be working such winning individuals. "Will I be doing the work they're doing?" "Uh, no, you'll be doing system administration." "In that case, maybe you should hire a Nobel Laureate. I am unworthy." Cleaning the digital bedpans of the superstars is not my idea of success. "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven," as one famous antagonist put it.
As long as the STEM subjects remain a zero-sum game, with the overwhelming spoils going to the early bloomers, the winners, like the author, should be satisfied with what they have already won in an unnecessarily and destructively competitive field. The rest of us are doomed to provide them support as members of the economic precariat at slave wages, if we are foolhardy enough to remain in academia. There is no honor in adding to someone else's power law distribution, and I urge the contest winners to hire Nobel Laureates and other members of their own rank to do their support work, and not add to their winnings by exploiting the unworthy persons they elbowed out.
(I did earn a Ph.D. in mathematics, incidentally. This was wasted effort. When I was a toddler, apparently I impressed a child psychologist with my logic; my mother told the woman that she was an idiot for thinking that I was advanced. My experience in academia was not good--I was mostly exploited. I have decided to abandon mathematics and computer science for art.)