The following post is a response to this article:
https://www.wired.com/2018/01/geeks-guide-david-ignatius/
Our problem is cultural.
Our culture glorifies fame and leadership not intellectual achievement.
Thought: the life of Howard Hughes follows the trajectory of our culture as it changed with respect to it's image of scientists and technical people.
Hughes early life is described as follows:
"At a young age, Hughes demonstrated interest in science and technology. In particular, he had great engineering aptitude and built Houston's first "wireless" radio transmitter at age 11.[11] He went on to be one of the first licensed ham radio operators in Houston, having the assigned callsign W5CY (originally 5CY).[12] At 12, Hughes was photographed in the local newspaper, identified as being the first boy in Houston to have a "motorized" bicycle, which he had built from parts from his father's steam engine.[13] He was an indifferent student, with a liking for mathematics, flying, and mechanics. He took his first flying lesson at 14, and attended Fessenden School in Massachusetts in 1921."
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Hughes
Here is a picture of the young Howard Hughes:
If you google his name you see a procession of pictures of him with beautiful women and the image of him as a young and middle aged man is very much the swashbuckling hero. Think "the worlds most interesting man". That was the young and middle aged Hughes.
We all know what happened to him in his later life. Obsessive compulsive disorders, living in a hotel room, not cutting his hair or fingernails and so on.
What is telling is that the image we have today of Howard Hughes is more the latter than the former and my opinion is that this is because we now feel that image is closer to the reality of scientists and engineers.
Watch an episode of "The Big Bang Theory" to see what I mean.
It's not something you would want to be if given a choice.
As of this writing a shockingly high percentage of the 1985 Chicago Bears Super Bowl championship team are either dead or disabled. Average age is only late 50's. Do we feel that their current state represents the "real" them? Obviously not. The "real" them is they way they were in 1985 (or thereabouts) and that is because we glorify athletics today - not scientists or engineers.
Can a reader mention even one top scientist or engineer alive today?
Being a scientist or engineer is just not culturally "cool" today, and it has not been cool for quite some time.
It was when Howard Hughes was a young man.
This is why we don't have more "smart" people.
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