Where's Today's Beethoven?

If aristocratic tutoring were a significant factor behind declining genius, we would expect to see a split: fields like science where tutoring is rare would lose their geniuses, whereas fields like music where tutoring is common would be as genius-filled as ever. But people use music as a typical example of a declining-genius field. So that can’t b... See more

Scientists often bemoan the state of originality in their field. New ideas are getting “harder to find.” Progress in large fields of science and technology is “slowing down.” Scientific knowledge has been in “clear secular decline.” (One wonders about the originality of their bemoaning.) But today’s researchers aren’t getting worse at coming up wit... See more

Dean Simonton, a psychologist, has spent his career studying creative productivity. He has found that even creative geniuses, what some may call David Guetta, have a hard time recognizing when they have a hit. Simonton spent some time studying Beethoven and spoke about him,

“Beethoven’s own favorites among his symphonies, sonatas, and quartets are n... See more