Belated Article on Wisdom

Here’s something I found in an old Parade Magazine. It was in the Ask Marylin section, where readers write questions to the woman with the highest IQ in the world and she answers.

Q: Child prodigies excel in the hard sciences, like math, physics, and chemistry. Why are there no 10-year-old economics or political science or philosophy prodigies?

A: Because, despite our joking to the contrary, children cannot be wise. No matter how bright, they haven’t yet learned enough about themselves (which is learning not available in a book) to see how their own particular nature and nurture have interacted to produce the way they think. Only after maturity-and only if they take the time and energy to begin to shed their biases-do they have the opportunity to eventually become wise.

How very true. I mean after all you can learn advanced mathematics as a child, yet knowing a lot about the way people and the world itself takes a lot of life experience.