Re:Intelligence, creativity and bipolar disorder may share u...
by jerf on Wednesday August 19, 2015 @10:02AM
(#10085506)
"There is a grain of truth to this but I think this article implies causation when it's merely a correlation."
Even a correlation is very interesting!
In fact I tend to disagree, I don't think anyone is proposing that the causation must be direct, because there are still intelligent people who are not bipolar or depressive and there are bipolar and depressed people who are not intelligent. But the correlation, which I think everybody assuming is some third factor behind the mental illness and intelligence/creativity, is still interesting.
... of course, it's an interesting correlation in a sea of interesting correlations, and it's hard to tell which of them are genuinely interesting and which are just "throw enough variables together and you'll get all sorts of spurious correlations". But I'd submit that this is an unusally strong signal, as evidenced by the fact that humans have been making this observation for centuries now. Even if it is spurious, I suspect the proof of that would itself have something interesting in it.
Even a correlation is very interesting!
In fact I tend to disagree, I don't think anyone is proposing that the causation must be direct, because there are still intelligent people who are not bipolar or depressive and there are bipolar and depressed people who are not intelligent. But the correlation, which I think everybody assuming is some third factor behind the mental illness and intelligence/creativity, is still interesting.
... of course, it's an interesting correlation in a sea of interesting correlations, and it's hard to tell which of them are genuinely interesting and which are just "throw enough variables together and you'll get all sorts of spurious correlations". But I'd submit that this is an unusally strong signal, as evidenced by the fact that humans have been making this observation for centuries now. Even if it is spurious, I suspect the proof of that would itself have something interesting in it.