[wordup] Marriage may tame genius

[Adam Shand]

From:http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/scitech/SciTechRepublish_898675.htm

Marriage may tame genius
Thursday, 10 July 2003

Creative genius and crime express themselves early in men but both are 
turned off almost like a tap if a man gets married and has children, a 
study says.

Satoshi Kanazawa, a psychologist at the University of Canterbury in New 
Zealand, compiled a database of the biographies of 280 great scientists, 
noting their age at the time when they made their greatest work.

The data remarkably concur with the brutal observation made by Albert 
Einstein, who wrote in 1942: "A person who has not made his great 
contribution to science before the age of 30 will never do so."

"Scientific productivity indeed fades with age," Dr Kanazawa says.

"Two-thirds (of all scientists) will have made their most significant 
contributions before their mid-30s."

But, regardless of age, the great minds who married virtually kissed 
goodbye to making any further glorious additions to their CV.

Within five years of making their nuptial vows, nearly a quarter of 
married scientists had made their last significant contribution to 
history's hall of fame.

"Scientists rather quickly desist (from their careers) after their 
marriage, while unmarried scientists continue to make great scientific 
contributions later in their lives," says Dr Kanazawa.

The energy of youth and the dampening effect of marriage, he adds, are 
also remarkably similar among geniuses in music, painting and writing, 
as well as in criminal activity.

Previous studies have documented that delinquents are overwhelmingly 
male, and usually start out on the road to crime in their teens.

But those who marry well, subsequently stop committing crime, whereas 
criminals at the same age who remain unmarried tend to continue their 
unlawful careers.

Dr Kanazawa suggests "a single psychological mechanism" is responsible 
for this: the competitive edge among young men to fight for glory and 
gain the attention of women.

That craving drives the all-important male hormone, testosterone.

Dr Kanazawa theorises after a man settles down, the testosterone level 
falls, as does his creative output.

The study appears in in the August issue of the Journal of Research in 
Personality, published by the Elsevier group.

The British weekly New Scientist reports on it in its upcoming issue on 
Saturday.