Ten questions, ten theses. Markus Hengstschläger, an Austrian geneticist and bioethicist of world renown, formulated ten theses in response to news questions and – always with the explicit remark that he was not a doctor – applied his findings to the current disaster situation.
This book was eagerly awaited for eight years: new conclusions from the world-class geneticist Markus Hengstschläger, who in 2012 formulated his concerns about the educational system in the explosive theses “The Average Trap”. Highly gifted, Hengstschläger had pointed out at the time, would already be suffocated here in school – because all efforts were used to “get through” and above the average drill there were no more resources for targeted support.
After record sales and countless lectures, Hengstschläger has now given in to the more and more urgent reproaches and sharpened the concept of talent from its core material. His key term is “talent for solutions”: The genes provide the talent, we have it in our hands to make them bloom and also to enable our children to do so. A precisely measured mixture of directed, tested knowledge and the visionary, undirected is a prerequisite for this. Epochal insights can be gained while jogging or daydreaming, goals can be achieved without ever striving for them.
1. What is talent?
“Talent is a genetically co-determined, child-like potential that can be developed through the acquisition of knowledge and practice and then has to be kept flourishing for a lifetime. There are large groups: the aesthetic talent, the linguistic talent, the mathematical talent and so on. A talent is a potential that is difficult to measure and can usually only be tested to a limited extent. It is pencil and paper, but everyone has to draw by themselves. The ability to solve problems, on whatever level, is extremely important. Any other talent will be along the way dry up to a creative new work without a talent for solutions. “
2. How do you train talent?
“You tell the toddler: Draw a house. It draws a round purple structure without a window. And then the parents get a piece of paper and draw a square house with a pointed roof, door, windows, and a chimney so that the child knows what the parents do believe what a house should look like. I say, on the one hand, there is targeted education. What we already know will be transferred to the next generation and should be used when this problem, this question arises again. We have to drive the wheel do not constantly reinvent. In addition to directional education, we also need non-directional education because there are more predictable and less predictable parts of the future. Some believe we are constantly bombarded with predictive analyzes, we are almost fully documented on the Internet, the future must be enormous Be predictable! But much of what will happen, Fukushima, Brexit, 9/11, Trump’s election, was not clearly predictable. That a pandemic always can come again is predictable, but when exactly, which pathogen will come and to what extent, not. So what if we don’t know what the houses will look like in the future? The talent for finding solutions must be brought to bloom to the point that the child later creates, designs and builds his own house, one that we cannot even imagine. “
© Heinz Stephan Tesarek
3. How do you get your child there?
“Through non-directional education, which has to supplement the indispensable knowledge imparted through targeted education: critical thinking, creativity, social skills and so on. Because too many think: What can I do against populism, terrorism, migration problems, the climate crisis or pandemic? are three groups: The blue-eyed optimists say it always worked out, it will work out this time too. They will do it. For example, people today often rely on biotechnology and artificial intelligence, which, according to the opinion, solve everything But science cannot and does not want to relieve people of their personal responsibility towards themselves and the planet. The second group are the die-hard pessimists who say with their hands in their pockets: I always knew that everything was so because of the Human beings are bad, and biology can say: humans are neither fundamentally good nor fundamentally bad, they have a genetic armament that is an opportunity, but also imposes a certain responsibility on it. Man cannot be reduced to his genes. We have a lot in our own hands. The third group are the enablers. They say: It won’t be easy, but we have to get involved. The pandemic is a good example of all kinds of gifted solutions: suddenly people got toilet paper for the neighbors who belong to the vulnerable group. Others try to solve the big problems such as B. Vaccines or drugs. But the others are no less to be valued. In short: humans are basically gifted with reason, social and solution. In order to get out of the participatory crisis, we clearly have to think about it more often. “
4. Which instruments help us?
“For example, practice. Parents are not allowed to constantly relieve their children of finding solutions. Or: If you deal with predictability and unpredictability, interfaces between disciplines and cultures automatically arise – this provides inspiration and promotes creativity. Then there is the Default Mode Network. These are regions of the brain that are active in the ‘resting state’ mode when we are daydreaming, jogging or mowing the lawn, for example. These regions of the brain are suspected to have something to do with creativity. Those who move can also find something What he was not looking for – e.g. America, penicillin, X-rays. This is called “serendipity.” Alexander Fleming was only able to make a significant contribution to the medical use of the antibiotic penicillin because he contaminated his experiments with mold discovered its antibacterial property completely by accident.We have to keep running out of the past t, but also learn from the future that is just taking shape. “
5. After the Chancellor’s 100,000 dead: Can fear be helpful?
“First of all, a distinction must be made between fear and fear. Fear concerns something concrete that I can name, for example spiders or a corona infection. Fear is something diffuse: I stand in my apartment and hear an unknown noise. Or I am afraid an unknown future. Biologically, fear is something without which Homo sapiens would not be what it is. It also leads to decisions: run away or fight? But many fears that made sense thousands of years ago only stand in our way today . Even in the pandemic, too much fear can paralyze and counteract the talent for finding solutions. A little fear can, however, also keep weighing processes going and protect us from recklessness or stupidity socially oriented, approaching things with as little distraction and excitement as possible in order to arrive at good solutions. As for the Chancellor’s announcement, akze I admit the idea that you wanted to achieve something. But how you say something still plays a decisive role. “
6. And freedom? Is there a basic right to endanger other people?
“According to Kant, the freedom of the individual ends where the freedom of the other begins. For example, it was less about banning the individual from smoking, but nobody should endanger the other. In the case of restrictions, no matter how small , it is important to constantly consider certain components: 1 .: The reason I can’t work hard enough on 2 .: The transparency that includes the huge issue of communication 3 .: The temporary moment – a measure must be revisable immediately when the reason is no longer there. And 4th: That one grapples with the ethical consequences at all levels. Of course, one wants to keep the infection rate low so as not to overload the health system. But at the same time, one must also think about the Caring for people with other illnesses. Then there are the problems of the economy, education, and the social impact. “
© Heinz Stephan Tesarek
7. Did the government make mistakes in the spring?
“In an international comparison, Austria has done well. Medically, what happened was certainly good, I trust myself to say that without being a doctor or virologist myself. But science must constantly learn from the future that is taking shape, and therefore it is logical that one or the other should be done differently today. “
8. Do you believe in personal responsibility?
“Personal responsibility has enormous power. But you shouldn’t be so naive as to think that a society can only function through personal responsibility without rules. It’s always a tightrope walk.”
9. Where does the right to error end when doctors play down the pandemic and advise against wearing a mask? Does democracy have limits here?
“There is a current state of science that one should adhere to. However, the state of science does not relieve us of the obligation to constantly question it and to always discuss it in accordance with the current state of affairs. As the Deputy Chairman of the Austrian Bioethics Commission, it is also important to me to let competing opinions have their say without polemics. Measures such as wearing masks or keeping your distance, etc., however, correspond to the current state of science. In principle, democracy is always the best approach However, there are two aspects to be addressed: 1 .: If five are in the same boat and they throw you overboard, they clearly have a majority, but it is still not ethically justifiable. 2 .: There is a negative aspect of digital change the perhaps easier emergence today of what I call a ‘felt’ majority. To move too often in echo chambers and community bubbles i n which one permanently agrees with one another often dangerously distorts the objective perception. “
10. Does digitalization help our children through the corona crisis?
“I dealt with the topic of digital education, which is currently being talked about a lot, in a different context, namely ethics in digital change. What is digital education? Of course, what we are now doing with lectures on Skype or Zoom You can also keep in contact with friends this way. Imagine if the pandemic had come before digitization! But digital education is much more than that. Of course, it also includes STEM with programming skills. But also For example the ethical implications. What traces do I leave behind on the Internet? What does it do to me as a person? What about social contact? That affects schoolchildren as well as people in the new world of work. I want my colleagues too get to know each other and talk to them about something other than their job World to go. We often find them by chance, in the classroom, in life. So it is certainly a huge advantage to be able to meet people all over the world digitally without long precautions. But we are not allowed to preselect ourselves in front of the screen. In the future we will find a mixed form, not an either-or, and move in both worlds. Try to explain in writing what cycling is like. You will need half a book. But tacit knowledge is achieved relatively quickly as you level up as a child, and after three rounds the mother or father leaves you out. In other words, any conversation you have ever had, even if today you may not even know what it was about, is worth more than any conversation you haven’t had. “
This article was published in the current issue of News (42/2020).