I thumbed thru a recent book in which the FBI was having great trouble
tracing a hacker who kept breaking into to 'secured' military sites, and
whom efforts to foil were largely unsuccessful. When they finally caught
him, online, they discovered he was a young idiot savant who essentially
had no idea of the ramifications of what he was doing; he did not know
what MIT is, but recognized mit.edu. That fine line between genius and
insanity is interesting. But another view is held by Marilyn vos Savant
(whatever one may think of her), that one can be brilliant, and still
socially adept, even likable. I have had the interesting experience of
encountering "hidden geniuses", one of whom passed as a ditsy blonde. I
like Gardner's view of multiple intelligences myself, and wonder what
went wrong with me... I also like the observation that to be
extraordinary is to be abnormal.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ted Ashton [SMTP:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Tuesday, June 30, 1998 2:02 PM
> To:   [log in to unmask]
> Subject:      Re: [HP3000-L] Thank you (wrt French translation)
>
> In definite support of Wirt and Hawking and as a partial explanation
> as to how
> both comments can be true at the same time, let me quote Aldous
> Huxley:
>
> If we evolved a race of Isaac Newtons, that would not be progress. For
> the
> price Newton had to pay for being a supreme intellect was that he was
> incapable of friendship, love, fatherhood, and many other desirable
> things.
> As a man he was a failure; as a monster he was superb.
>
> Ted
> --
> Ted Ashton ([log in to unmask]), Info Serv, Southern Adventist
> University