Video Review: Shenk's "Genius"

Last week I reviewed David Shenk's The Genius in All of Us. Here is the video version.

The Genius in All of Us

This is my review of the new book by David Shenk, The Genius in All of Us. I think it is an excellent and important book, and a must-read for all those passionate about human potential and expanded human futures. However, it is a rather long review, so for those who want to short version, I have highlighted in bold the parts of the text which I consider most important.

“This book is not a dispassionate presentation of all scientific points of view. Instead it embraces the arguments of the Interactionists, whose views I came to trust most after much reading, conversation and consideration.”(p. 148)

So writes David Shenk in The Genius in All of Us, and true to his word he is. Shenk’s book is not a strictly scientific investigation of intelligence or giftedness, but a personal presentation for the case that intelligence is highly malleable, and that it emerges from the interaction of genes and environment. His case differs from many mainstream representations of intelligence in that he finds environment plays a far greater role than  many intelligence theorists acknowledge. Intelligence, states Shenk, is a process, more so than a discrete entity which sits in the physical structure of the brain. He writes:

“…intelligence isn’t fixed. Intelligence isn’t general. Intelligence is not a thing. Intelligence is a dynamic, diffuse and ongoing process.” (p.42)