Brilliance

LATELY MUCH HAS BEEN MADE of Dr. Eugene Bryce and his study of the so-called “brilliants,” that percentage of children born since 1980 with exceptional abilities. While the full scope of their gifts is unknown, it’s clear that something remarkable has happened: savants are being born not once in a generation, but every hour of every day.

Historically, the term “savant” was generally paired with another word, to form an unkind but not inaccurate phrase: idiot savant. Those rare individuals with superhuman gifts were generally crippled in some way. Broken geniuses, they were able to recreate the London skyline after only a moment’s glance, yet unable to order a cup of tea; able to intuit string theory or noncommutative geometry and yet be baffled by their mother’s smile. It was as though evolution was maintaining equilibrium, giving here, taking there.

However, this is not the case with the “brilliants.” Dr. Bryce estimates that as many as one in a hundred children born since 1980 have these advantages, and that these children are otherwise statistically normal. They are smart, or not. Social, or not. Talented, or not. In other words, apart from their wondrous gifts, they are exactly as children have been since the dawn of man.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, public discussion has focused on cause. Where did these children come from? Why now? Will this continue on forever, or will it end as abruptly as it began?

But there’s a more important issue. A question with shattering implications. A question that is on the tip of our collective tongues, and yet that we do not discuss—perhaps because we fear the answer.

What will happen when these children grow up?