alt Hacker NewsThere are very very few people wired like Tao; how many child prodigies like that are there ? He seems to be one in a million but its pretty much impossible to assess IQ at those levels. Sure, it's not enough. YOu need the obsession for math, but lets not trivialize his intellectual ability - he's definitely not only top 1% that would just put him in the smartest 2-3 kids in his class. No, he was probably among the smartest 10-20 kids of his age group in the whole United States.
I was speaking generally, and wrote that people like him (not him specifically) are elite within the top 1%. So basically 1% of the 1%.
Not that I mean the percentages factually, more like an order of magnitude.
But my point is, in terms of "natural ability", I don't believe there is that much of a gap among top performers, but that things like work ethic and determination, and also some luck in environments, is what ends up setting them apart.
That's why I think they're worth praising: it's not just a spin of genetic roulette (unless one believes every single attribute about us is genetic, I guess).