Bibliographic record
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: In a previous study of literary creative achievement, we presented evidence refuting the still-influential statistical studies of Frances Galton on the inheritance of genius and also described a family background constellation of creativity. This study aims to assess empirically the hereditary transmission hypothesis with respect to creative achievement in the natural sciences. METHODS: Family background data were collected on 435 of all 488 Nobel laureates in chemistry, physics, and medicine and physiology, from 1901 through 2003. These were compared with a matching group of 548 eminent nonscientists for incidence of occupational inheritance (that is, same parent-offspring occupations) and with 560 high-IQ nonprizewinners for predominant type of occupation. RESULTS: The incidence of one or both parents having the same occupation was only 2% for science Nobel laureates but 20% for eminent nonscientists (P < 0.001). The predominant family background constellation (63%) for science Nobel laureates consisted of the same-sex parent either having a performance-equivalent occupation involving applied science, technology, or a natural-world focus and skills (P < 0.001, compared with the matching group) or having an unrelated occupation with unfulfilled scientific interests and wishes for creative expression. CONCLUSIONS: Nobel laureates in the natural sciences do not manifest direct inheritance of creativity from their parents; instead, congruent-sex parents are predominantly in applied or performance-equivalent occupations, with unfulfilled creative and scientific wishes. Early developmental influences on motivation involving identification and competition with the congruent-sex parent are suggested.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".