Knowing all this makes high IQs and the story of Marilyn vos Savant seem rather different. Has her IQ been a burden as much as a blessing? According to John Rust, at Cambridge, to produce an extraordinary IQ score a mind must have two unusual qualities. The first is “mechanical facility” – useful but sometimes harmful in extreme cases, hence the preponderance of people with Asperger's syndrome who have high IQs. And you must also excel at a wide variety of tasks. Intelligence tests measure a range of mental abilities, whereas most people naturally, and happily, concentrate on just a few. Abnormally high IQ scores, by their nature, often speak of a brain too general to be of much use. “Effectively,” said Rust, “you are mastering far too many things.”
瞭解了所有這些之後，令高智商人羣和瑪麗蓮·沃斯·莎凡特的故事看似相當不同。她的智商給她帶來的負擔如同祝福一樣多麼？根據劍橋大學的約翰·魯斯特的研究，要產生出非凡的智商，頭腦必須具備兩項不同尋常的品質。首先是：「機械的靈活性」——很有用，但在某些極端情況下是有害的，在有自閉症症狀的人羣中，高智商人在人數上佔優勢。同時你還必須擅於處理範圍廣泛、類型多樣的任務。智力測試考量的是一系列精神能力，而大多數人只是自然地、愉快地專注於其中的幾項。非正常的高智商，從本質上說，通常說明大腦太全面。不堪大用。「實際上，」魯斯特說，「你掌握了太多太多的東西。」
