"David,

I would like for you to estimate the probability that, if you tried and were fully dedicated to it and got a Ph.D, you would end up a fully tenured professor at a top 5 University in the following fields:
Mathematics
Economics
A hard science
Psychology
Sociology
Philosophy

What odds would you give that you would win a Nobel prize/Fields Medal etc. in the above fields?

A follow up, if you spent a year or two studying the game(s) do you think that you could become a top coach or manager of any of the major sports (football, baseball, basketball, soccer, hockey)?

Finally, do you think you would do any of the following jobs at a very high level relative to those that are currently doing them:
Chief of Police of a large city
Mayor of a major city (NY, Chicago, Miami, LA, SF etc.)
Governor of a large state (CA, NY, FL)
A high level general of the armed forces
President of the United States "

Look. Bottom line is that when I was 14 I was in the top 100 or so fourteen year olds in the US in math, science, and logic. From that point on I went a little crazy but that craziness, and going away from the academic path hurt in some ways but helped in others. Because I mingled more than typical prodigies with average folks.

In spite of my burnout though the typical run of the mill Harvard math major would have been no match for me if I dusted off my cobwebs just a little. I owe that solely to my father's genes. So I am sure I could have become a professor at any university if I had tried. I would have been out of my element a little bit in Sociology or Psychology but not to the point that I couldn't have made up for it with sheer thinking ability. Art or even Literature is a different story.

A Fields Medal would have been a giant underdog. My specialty has always been coming up with clever shortcuts to relatively easy problems. Not the stuff of Fields Medals. If I won a Nobel Prize, it would almost certainly be in Economics. Even now I would take 25,000 to one that I'll get one and bet up to $1000. Back then it was 100-1.

Up until the last few years I could easily have been a better baseball manager than anyone who had ever managed. Too much mathematical stupidity going on. I'd be a good football manager if I was allowed to delegate a lot of stuff. Not sure about the other sports.

As for the political jobs I'm sure you could do any of them better than the morons who do them now.

Wow.

So could 5 million other people

David, what do you think of Sheldon Ross? He's pretty much "the man" in probability.

DS. I'm often amazed at what you can do and how you frame questions (a most fundamental component of genius). Your chances of understanding the work of a Fields winner are grim, and your chances of winning are 0. Whatever you think your potential as a 14 year old meant are mistaken.

David I think you're very very smart, but I'm pretty sure you're both overestimating your own intelligence and underestimating the intelligence of others. I think being an expert in a field that, until recently, has not attracted the attention of many very intelligent people has contributed to your error.

Becoming a tenured math professor at a "top 5" school is incredibly difficult and requires much more than just intelligence (and certainly much more than being one of the "top 100" 14 year olds in math, science, and logic whatever that means).

I'm assuming that there are at least 2000 such people. Plus another 10,000 who are essentially equal but chose another path. If that's true, I stick to my statement.

Many of you don't realize that I have met several people of that ilk. And when the conversation sticks to subjects that I know about, they have been at least as likely to learn from me as the other way around. Nesbit Ankeny from MIT and Persi Diaconis from Stanford are two examples. Diaconis now teaches my "coincidence" concept in Poker Gaming and Life in some of his classes.

First of all I'm not disagreeing with your self assessment of your academic potential.

I assume that you'd delegate responsibilities in managing practices in football. In my opinion the value of "coaching' in baseball where technique and various skils are honed in practices is often underestimated. So methinks you would have to do a fair amount of delegation in baseball as well. In a nutshell I believe there's alot more that goes into managing a baseball team than game time decisions.

Part of being an elected politician is acknowledging other politicians agendas and points of view and thus meeting somewhere in the middle, at least in western style democracies. Skill in managing the media also comes to mind. Are you inferring that you could re-do political science theory as well?

"Part of being an elected politician is acknowledging other politicians agendas and points of view and thus meeting somewhere in the middle, at least in western style democracies. Skill in managing the media also comes to mind. Are you inferring that you could re-do political science theory as well?"

No. I am saying that like sports, there is enough of a math/logic/probability component to their jobs that my advantage there would more than make up for my disadvantages elsewhere. Contrast that to the president of General Electric. I'm sure I'm smarter than him too but not to he point where I could do a better job.

There are so many smart people running around.

The biggest difference between academic successes and academic failures is drive. You have to like thinking about the things you are paid to think about. If the community thinks those problems are important, you are in luck.

By that definition, you couldn't, because you don't. But if you wanted to, you could. If everyone wanted to they would be flipping coins (but science would benefit). An unsatisfying answer but true IMO.

Being a Professor has a lot more to do with hard work than raw talent. Many reasonably intelligent people who work very very hard, have a passion for their field, and a little luck should be able to do it. Some people get to become a Professor simply by being well liked and having good contacts. None make it by simply being smart. I'm speaking from experience here.

100-1 on a nobel prize is completely & utterly ludicrous -- your ignoring the fact that winning a Nobel prize has very little to do with raw intelligence/talent. It's much more about being at the right place, at the right time -- something which is very difficult to engineer.

Maybe your not being serious, but your responses come across as typicly arrogant.

Fine. I was just answering someone's question.

And a good job at that! I was just trying to:

(1) Clarify for younger people who read these forums and think that their brain alone will take them everywhere they want to go in life.
(2) Goad you into writing a paper about POMDPs.

I really look forward to what you have to say about politics.

What do you want to know?

1. Thougths on resolving the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

2. Thoughts on U.S. foreign policy objectives in the Middle East.

3. Energy policy in the U.S. (obviously a wide ranging topic that could go in alot of directions).

4. Resovling the rising costs of health care in the U.S. and setting policy on what governments role should be in health care.

That's it for now.

I'm sorry to say that these issues require knowledge of details as well as thinking ability. Knowledge I don't have. I will say that it gets pretty tough if one side claims they won't give up something because God promised it to them. As for health care, one basic question that can't be answered with pure logic is whether expensive tratments should be provide for people who can't afford them. The best you can do is make sure that people who start with the same basic premises come to the same conclusions. But since those basic premises orinally come more from feelings than thought, I see no obvious answers.

A very honest assessment and mucho appreciated. I understand about the knowledge of details being necessary. I will state that I'm not at all confident that the current genre of politicians has the knowledge of details or the thinking ability to address the issues.

Not necessarily looking for definitive anwers either. I benefit a great deal from the your descriptions on how you approach problems and put them into terms that are more easy to understand like you did in your reply.

LOL ... I happen to go Stanford and have taken a couple classes from Diaconis. I mentioned you and I can pretty safely say he doesn't think much of you David, nor does he "teach" in depth any of your material in his classes except in passing as a pedomorphic side note. Your claims are laughable at best.

David I don't mean to be insulting in any way here. how would you rate the size of your ego vs the rest of 2p2?

I also go to Stanford, and I want you to post the dialog between you and the professor here. I don't believe that you actually asked him anything.

khan,

Could you explain your usage of the word pedomorphic there and how it applies to that material? Thanks.

Also, sweet post. I look forward to David's response. It's about time we had some high drama around these parts.

Of course the guy who posted that has 1 post.

david isn't going to respond because khandom probably doesn't know diaconis' first name