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Genius and premature birth: little evidence that claims about historically eminent scientists are accurate

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Abstract

A number of very eminent and highly creative individuals are often claimed to have been born prematurely, and the idea that widely recognised scientific geniuses such as Newton, Kepler, and Darwin were preterm has become a cultural meme through the popular press, and through popular and academic science books. This potentially raises very important questions, related to the nature and origin of creativity and innovation, as it has been suggested that prematurity and genius may be linked. Here, we review suggested links between prematurity and genius, in terms of psychological traits associated with genius, and compare the percentage of top geniuses in Murray’s Human Accomplishment who are claimed to have been born prematurely to that of Western populations in general. Although a significant number of those in Murray’s sample have been asserted to be preterm, we found that none of them could be said with certainty to have been so, refuting the hypothesis that there is a clear connection between prematurity and scientific genius.

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Notes

  1. In addition, Linden et al. (2000), in a textbook on premature babies aimed at the parents of such babies, also assert that Voltaire and Rousseau were born early. Both were small and sickly infants, but there is no direct evidence that they were born prematurely (Pearson, 2010; Rousseau, 1903). They also allege that ‘Napoleon Bonaparte’ was born prematurely. In fact, it was his nephew, usually referred to as Emperor Napoleon III or as Louis-Napoleon, who was preterm (Addison, 2006, p. 272).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Asbiro University, ul. Milionowa 12, 93-193, Lodz, Poland

    Edward Dutton

  2. Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden

    Guy Madison

  3. Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

    Dimitri van der Linden

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  1. Edward Dutton
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  2. Guy Madison
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  3. Dimitri van der Linden
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Correspondence to Edward Dutton.

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Dutton, E., Madison, G. & van der Linden, D. Genius and premature birth: little evidence that claims about historically eminent scientists are accurate. Indian J Hist. Sci. 56, 20–27 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43539-021-00005-1

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