Re:15 year olds brilliant? (Score 1)

She's undeniably smart and talented, but not the prodigy she was made out to be.

Society has an undeniable fascination with prodigies, to the point that every kid who shows some interest and talent can potentially be hyped up into a genius in some field or other.

There are 15 year olds out there hyped as blues guitar greats, math whizzes, hacking masters, and most of them, while talented, can't possibly live up to the label of prodigy. But we love prodigies so much, we keep looking for them, and if necessary, manufacturing them.

It seems (from the links you provided) that Sarah Flannery managed to keep things in perspective, but I have to wonder how many kids don't. The pressure we put on these kids to be the "real deal" can be huge (what if Sarah's algorithm had really been the huge improvement it promised, and it turned out to be her biggest accomplishment, at the age of 15 or 16?). It's also not fair to the adults who spend years mastering their crafts to spread the fiction that a kid can do the same thing, with just a gift.

I wonder if we emphasize the prodigies so much because we as a society really hope that it's possible to be "born great," without ever having to work hard at it. Is it just laziness that fuels our obsession with prodigies?

The overwhelming majority 15 year-olds on the 'Net aren't doing anything that tough, as has been pointed out. It's only the fact that many adults are too intellectually lazy to investigate a bit further that makes those teens seem like such whizzes, and so the myth of the brilliant teen hacker lives on. Not that these teens aren't bright; but they haven't done much besides read manuals and spend some time digging around.