I wrote "biggest brains in the law field" because I thought being in the law field would be a basic qualification to get started on the job, but I wrote that thinking these are not the biggest of the big brains.
That made me think about Laurence Tribe, the noted Harvard professor:
When he first arrived at Harvard College in 1958, the precocious but awkward 16-year-old was certain that mathematics was where he would make his name in the world. He appeared to be well on his way, blazing beyond his undergraduate coursework and finishing with top academic honors. But as the long-awaited door to a math Ph.D. swung open, the young immigrant, whose Russian Jewish family had left China for California right after World War II, found himself dissatisfied and inexplicably drawn to the study of law, specifically to the U.S. Constitution....
Inexplicably! If he's so brilliant, why can't he explicate his own motivations? And then... what is brilliance?
"I had trouble with arithmetic — not with mathematics, I love math — but manipulating numbers was never my strength. The kind of math I loved and excelled in was algebraic topology, very structural things, and my senior thesis was about the theory of n-dimensional knots in space. But despite that, I can’t find my way around physical space at all. I have no geographic sense even though I have a very right-hemisphere brain. I tend to think pictorially. I draw pictures. I do Venn diagrams. My students always enjoyed how I would scribble all kinds of diagrams on the board before class. You’d think, given that proclivity, that I would be able to find my way around. But right now, if you asked me where [the] bedroom is, I would probably point to the wrong part of the house."
Brilliance comes and goes. There are different levels of intelligence in different places on the landscape of the mind, and that mind — even at the genius level — cannot tell you why this variation exists and where the gaps and shadows lie.
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I Joe Biden had Nominated Michele O'Bama to the Supreme Court..
Would it have been RACIST to question her standing?
What about Whoopee! Goldberg? If Biden had Nominate her? Would questioning HER be Racist?
Look, the whole idea that we need "Brilliance" on the SCOTUS is tied to the idea that these Justices are "Wise ol'gray beards" in robes reading the "sarcred text" and coming to these brilliant conclusions based on justice and the law.
Its only naive people who think this. And a lot of "Constitution worshippers" on the Center-right. You should have a certain amount legal knowledge and intelligence, and after that its just about your values and politics.
Brilliant, High IQ, Tribe was calling for Tucker Carlson to be charged with treason. Had he been put on the SCOTUS, he would've voted with Sotomayor (our dimmest justice) 95% of the time. Brown will go on the court and do the same. It doesn't matter if her IQ if 20 points below Tribe's. Oh and you know who's also "Brilliant"? Dershowitz. Y'know the guy who made all those trips to Pedophile Island.
Of course the liberal/left is saying "Big Brains" doesn't matter NOW. If in 2025 a Republican President nominated a mediocrity, they'd be screaming how heavens about how unqualified she was, and was so STUPID.
Personally, i think the power of the Federal Judiciary should be vastly reduced, since its nothing more than Politicans in robes acting like unelected dicators. They stopped ruling on the law/constitution a long, long, time ago.
""My own view is that the biggest brains wouldn't be in the legal profession to start with.""
The LSAT does not predict brilliance.
It predicts your ability to be successful in the field of law.
It tests memorization capacity and reading comprehension.
Knowing the results of a person's LSAT score would just be one data point in assessing a candidate. There would be many data points like this.
What Ann and the Democrats are doing by jumping up and down screaming RACIST! at their political opponents has nothing to do with the LSAT or judging people's qualifications.
They just want to attack people not in their tribe.
Ann needs to feel superior to Tucker Carlson and people that watch that channel and ascribe to those views.
The people who made the Jackson appointment were explicitly racist and made this entire discussion about race. They cannot defend their racism or affirmative action.
So they jump up and down screaming about other people's racism and obfuscate.
They just cannot have an honest discussion.
It is gross.
It's a waste for the biggest brains to be in the legal profession. It's not rocket science.
We all have gaps.
We are all brilliant in some way. Some in many ways. A handful are more than brilliant in some ways, they are genius. Most of us are just simply brilliant in some way, maybe a way that we never fully realize ourselves. And so it- our brilliance- goes into the grave with us. Never tapped, never shown. Others tend to think too much of their found brilliance. That's another story for another time. But most of us are mostly gaps, with some small shoots of brilliance.
It'd be too hard to measure or predict overall brilliance in life. Too much happens that we cannot account for, including how one reacts to what is happening.
The biggest brains say no to reparations.
Larry, based on his Tweets from the last few years, seems to be hemorrhaging brain cells. Might be dog track time.
I remember hearing long ago that most geniuses eventually go mad. That idea describes Tribe.
I think about this from time to time. It reminds me of the famous quote: Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
Laurence Tribe isn’t even that good at constitutional law. He recently was forced to delete a tweet asserting Tucker Carlson’s fellating of Vladimir Putin was “treason” under Article III, Section 3 of the US Constitution. It’s the kind of statement even a first-year student at a fourth-rate law school knows is bullshit.
--- "if you asked me where [the] bedroom is, I would probably point to the wrong part of the house."
Much like his political directionals.
Btw, brilliance has nothing to do with how well one knows oneself or one's own motivations. In fact, it probably interferes since it gives one a great range of self-deceiving possibilities to entertain to the heart's content.
I have long thought that the Establishment fetishizes possession of a law degree as a prerequisite for a seat on the Supreme Court--perhaps the citizenry does, too, although I'm not sure there is direct evidence for this. I'm also not sure why the law degree is necessarily of paramount value. What's more useful, it seems to me, is the capacity to think and analyze clearly and to articulate one's insights and analysis simply and effectively. Lawyer-speak has its place in the everyday transactions of the legal realm, but it is of less usefulness at the Supreme Court, whose opinions are of universal civic concern. The capacity to think and articulate clearly should be in the service of a carefully thought-out appreciation of the fundamentals of our constitutional system; such capabilities should be more than enough to qualify citizens for the position.
There are different levels
of intelligence
in different places
on the landscape of the mind.
And that mind
cannot tell you
why this variation exists
and where the gaps and shadows lie.
And it's knowing I'm not shackled
By forgotten words and bonds
And the ink stains that are dried upon some line
That keeps you in the backroads
By the rivers of my memory
That keeps you ever gentle on my mind.
The Constitution is not a real complex document.
You don't need the 'biggest brains'.. only those that can read and interpret the constitution as it is WRITTEN.
BTW, will it be OK if Republicans ask the new nominee about her high school yearbook and what kind of HS parties she attended?
There are different levels of intelligence in different places on the landscape of the mind
Case study, the Grothendieck Prime.
It would be fun to see ole Larry use his biggest brains to explain why Kamala Harris can break a tie vote on a Presidential appointment when Mike Pence couldn't (though I'm pretty sure one of the three RINOs will probably his bacon out of the fire).
@Paul: Interpreting the Constitution as written isn’t so simple. Take the right to bear “arms.” What does the word “arms” mean? Does it mean firearms that were in common use in 1789? Does it mean any personal firearm? Does any personal firearm include automatic weapons? How about hand-held mortars and rockets? If it was simple, there are AI programs that could do the job.
Don't confuse a fat head for a big brain.
I agree that the biggest brains are not common in the legal profession, although I don’t really know what the phrase “ biggest brains” means.
The legal profession seems to value a narrow range of skills, focued on careful interpretation of complex texts and some basic knowledge of persuasion. I would rephrase the proposition thusly: the most intelligent people are not well represented in the legal profession.
While the law is full of intelligent people, the tedious nature of real legal work simply does not attract many people from across the broad spectrum of “Intelligences.” However, I have no idea which fields attract the most intelligent people. How could that be measured? And by whom? The most moral and ethical people, however, are also not well represented in the law. Just look at congress for ample evidence.
@Charlie at 1224-
Rather than generically asking if it's ok for Rs to look into high school yearbooks, we should insist that all candidate justices be asked specifically-
Do you think it was appropriate for senators to evaluate the high school yearbook of Justice Kavanaugh? And, then-
Would it be legal and appropriate for the managing partner of a law firm to publicly state that "We don't have any black female associates, so nobody other than a black woman will be considered."?
I suspect that Judge Brown will have been prepped for questions like these, but it will still be fun to see her answers.
"There are different levels of intelligence in different places on the landscape of the mind"
But the correlations are pretty high.
“The LSAT does not predict brilliance.”
Maybe not, but it does track IQ pretty well.
“It predicts your ability to be successful in the field of law.
“It tests memorization capacity and reading comprehension.”
Not really, as to memorization. I scored at the 98-99% level on the LSAT, and have a very weak memory. And, as many will attest here, my reading comprehension sometimes isn’t as strong as we all would like. I do best with theory, and can remember things if they fit into slots in my theories. The one thing that I am very good at is taking multiple guess tests. Three of the five boys in our family were that way, as well as our mother. Our father and two brothers were more methodical thinkers.
Except interestingly, the test for admission to business school (GMAT). At the time, the LSAT was graded on the number of right answers minus maybe 1/4 of the wrong answer (it was almost a half century ago, so don’t hold me to the specifics). That meant that if you can eliminate 2 answers, it was beneficial to guess. The GMAT, on the other hand deducted the entirety of wrong answers from correct answers. That meant that guessing was heavily penalized. The result was that my GMAT score was 100 points lower (on an 800 scale) than my LSAT score was. So, I, of course went to Business School first, where I struggled. Law School, on the other hand, was pretty easy for me. So, maybe both tests were a good test of aptitude.
But the other thing that I had in my favor with both the LSAT and LS was that I grew up with a lawyer as a father, and many of his friends were lawyers and judges. I kinda grew up thinking like a lawyer. If nothing else, as a teenager, arguing like a lawyer was more effective with my father than arguing emotionally. It’s a different sort of thinking, that doesn’t come naturally to a lot of people. It’s one of the big things that you learn as a 1L. Except for those of us who grew up around it (my friends who had a lawyer parent say the same thing). One of the things that the LSAT does, or at least did, was to test that - in particular, can you detach emotionally, and think abstractly, applying specified principles? I should add that my upper level, abstract, math classes in college helped here too. Esp as a senior math major, a lot of the math classes seem to revolve around “let’s pretend”.
“Knowing the results of a person's LSAT score would just be one data point in assessing a candidate. There would be many data points like this.”
Very much agree with that.
One thing to keep in mind is that one of the points in “The Bell Curve” is that the measured IQ is essentially equivalent across all doctorate degrees, at about 1 STD above the mean (100), with one exception - the type of participation doctorate (EdD) awarded school teachers taking summer school (and our First Lady). Their mean IQ didn’t differ significantly from the population mean (remember this if you ever get in a conversation with a teacher, and they try to impress you with their doctorate degree). That means that the average IQ of JDs, MDs, PhDs, etc are essentially the same (except that Physics PhDs statistically have higher IQs). I have known some brilliant JDs, as I have PhDs and, surprisingly, MDs. They probably tend to gravitate towards teaching LS (e.g., of course, our generous hostess). But I have known some brilliant ones in private practice too. Not as much in the judiciary - much of trial court work, in particular, can be extremely repetitive and boring. My guess is that trial court judges have an IQ mean close to the average of JD grads.
Take the right to bear “arms.” What does the word “arms” mean?
Weapons. Tools designed to kill.
Does it mean firearms that were in common use in 1789?
It includes them.
Does it mean any personal firearm?
It includes them.
Does any personal firearm include automatic weapons?
Yes.
How about hand-held mortars and rockets?
Yes. In fact the Revolutionary War started when the British Army tried to confiscate privately held cannons. It was common for privately owned merchant ships to be armed with cannons, guns, swords and pikes at the time.
Look up Letter of Marque and Reprisal. The Constitution explicitly permits the government to issue them, and the government has. Under the original meaning of the Second Amendment, it would be legal for Musk to own and operate a fully armed and crewed Ford class aircraft carrier.
The purpose of the Second Amendment is not hunting, or personal protection. It was meant to preserve the ability to overthrow a tyrannical government.
"Check out the big brain on Brad."
They're Pinky and the Brain
Pinky and the Brain
One is a genius
The other is insane....
Pretty astute of the Warner Bros studios to predict our future Supreme Court way back in the 90s.
Take the right to bear “arms.” What does the word “arms” mean? Does it mean firearms that were in common use in 1789? Does it mean any personal firearm? Does any personal firearm include automatic weapons? How about hand-held mortars and rockets?
Yes. Yes it does. Read the Constitution and learn about "Letters of Marque".
Limits have subsequently been put on certain arms. But that did not ban them from civilian ownership or use.
Those ships were not equipped with just muskets.
"Btw, brilliance has nothing to do with how well one knows oneself or one's own motivations. In fact, it probably interferes since it gives one a great range of self-deceiving possibilities to entertain to the heart's content."
What then is the importance of the ancient aphorism "Know thyself"?
I don't think we want brilliance on the supreme court, even if it were on offer to us. As a nation governed by the rule of law (a matter of predictability, not of legislation), we should want our supreme justices to be men and women of stability. Brilliance is rarely stable, for it is intrinsically innovative. We don't want innovation on the court.
My preference has been for retired flag-rank military officers. No law degrees, but plenty of experience applying as well as evaluating law, regulation, and policy. Take any three-star with a full tenure of command at every rank (sorry, Colin Powell), and they will have a lifetime of experience wrangling with both lawyers and legal issues, as well as balancing these against the everyday need to get basic things done. Plus, of course, they will have presided over a court martial or two.
Biden picked the worng Woman of Color. Childs should have been his pick. Graham an Scott would have voted for her and their votes would have been needed as Childs is not union-friendly and some Progressives migth have voted her down. Childs expert experience is on Federal regulation issues on the receiving state end--and she is NOT an Ivy-Leaguer unlike Biden's choice. Biden's choice is a Paul Ryan in-law so more Deep Swamp judicial incest.
here is one with a plot to overthrow Communism
you are correct Ma'am Professora : the brain - david niven
you are correct Ma'am Professora : the brain - david niven
"...whose Russian Jewish family had left China for California..."
Wtf? That sounds like a more interesting story than his problems with arithmetic.
@gahrie: Yes, I agree that if the Government were to issue a letter of marque and reprisal to you authorizing you to capture Russian merchant ships, you could outfit a ship of war and go hunting. But that doesn't have anything to do with the meaning of the word "arms" in the second amendment.
According to Article III, Section 3, a person is guilty of treason if he or she goes to war against the United States or gives “aid or comfort” to an enemy. He or she does not have to physically pick up a weapon and fight in combat against U.S. troops.
============
>>>> Buying OIL from PUTIN >>>> ???
"and my senior thesis was about the theory of n-dimensional knots in space."
As one might expect. But, that leads to the question, where else would n-dimensional knots be?
@Nathan, excellent point.
Snubbing Clyburn and Graham in favor of a Deep State pick is an admission that the people running Biden are giving up on legislating and going for the 'pen and phone' strategy.
I don’t think the founders meant for our nation’s most impactful, strategic, and cultural decisions to be made by a committee of nine lawyers. And yet, here we are.
--- What then is the importance of the ancient aphorism "Know thyself"? [AA]
It is probably preferable to know oneself and thus make decisions that comport the best with one's own personality and its preferences, than to live in ignorance of same.
My point is that "brilliance," the term you used, is not the requirement for knowing oneself. Intellectuality has many facets and they can easily become tools to deceive oneself about the self or many other issues. That Tribe may be brilliant as in pure intelligence does not mean that he can arrive at the wisdom of knowing himself -- or many other subjects -- any better than someone with a fraction of his intellectual "brilliance."
An intellectual plodder may have much greater understanding of himself. And much greater wisdom about life all around, than a "brilliant" person like Tribe.
Btw, Tribe did know why he left math. He said he wasn't as good at it as he thought necessary. Maybe he is better at spinning theories about the law and its political applications. Just another manifestation of the particular form of intelligence with which he was blessed. Another possibility is that his "inexplicable" attraction to the Constitution was a verbal smokescreen for motivations that he does understand and doesn't enjoy discussing. Just a guess, but one's words can have many purposes, can't they?
The biggest brains are reluctant to leave academia or lucrative law practices to become judges. Would you, AA?
Also, big minds can get themselves into trouble with their big ideas and big mouths. Anyone who's famous enough for me to have heard of is probably already disqualified for saying or writing controversial things.
I wonder about the "big brains" concept too. There are brilliant specialists in areas of the law and brilliant specialists in peripheral matters (law and this, law and that). How do you compare them to people in the traditional mainstream?
I don’t think the founders meant for our nation’s most impactful, strategic, and cultural decisions to be made by a committee of nine lawyers. And yet, here we are.
Thank John Marshall and the illegitimate Marbury decision.
@gahrie: Yes, I agree that if the Government were to issue a letter of marque and reprisal to you authorizing you to capture Russian merchant ships, you could outfit a ship of war and go hunting. But that doesn't have anything to do with the meaning of the word "arms" in the second amendment.
You have the causality wrong. The government can issue me a Letter of Marque and Reprisal because I already own the fully crewed and armed ship. And all the merchant ships I am attacking will be armed also. Any ship sailing into foreign waters at the time carried cannons, guns and boarding pikes to fight off pirates. (and privateers) It is the words "Right to bear arms shall not be infringed" that does so that protected that right.
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