Einstein was arguably the most academically successful person of the 20th century. For example, Time magazine described him as the preeminent scientist in a century dominated by science. According to Stephen Pinker, 34 billion people lived some time during the 20th century. If we normalize the distribution of academic success, Einstein was 6.53 SD more academically successful than the average human.
Assuming about 60 million Ashkenazi Jews lived during the 20th century, and Einstein was the most academically successful of them all, he was 5.53 SD more academically successful than even the average Ashkenazi Jew.
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Of course he was the most successful scientist in history, but how was he in school? That’s slightly different. I’m sure he was at least in the top .1% of academic ability, but you can’t derive that from his future scientific success alone.
OK, I see you regress his academic capability against his scientific success in the next post.
Accord Steven Prinker….
Pinker’s estimate is BS, in the last year “only” 55 million people died, despite having the highest world population ever. So according to Pinker, 340 million had to die on average each year during the 20th century.
In 2011 131 million babies were born. In 13-14 years, the worldwide population increases by 1 billion people.