[Link] Lessons from Gian-carlo Rota Indiscrete Thoughts

HT FS Blog, 10 Lessons of an MIT Education:

Lesson Five: You don’t have to be a genius to do creative work.

The idea of genius elaborated during the Romantic Age (late 18th and 19th centuries) has done harm to education. It is demoralizing to give a young person role models of Beethoven, Einstein, and Feynman, presented as saintly figures who moved from insight to insight without a misstep. Scientific biographies often fail to give a realistic description of personality, and thereby create a false idea of scientific work.