Unfortunately, their future fame wasn't much consolation to them in what, quite often, was their present misery and obscurity.

Our society has an unfortunate habit of reserving its highest accolades for posthumous award.

<My name is and is not Ismail Abdel Irada.> How can that be? Your version of the burning bush?

And now a passage from your website "moralintelligence" that illustrates my point, I guess:

<Often I have speculated about what would have happened had I remained true to my plans, at the outset of my time at university, to synthesize a dual major in ethology and ichthyology and study cichlids in their Amazon basin and east African lake habitats. To be sure, I think I would be more comfortable, probably happier. I would be flying around the world, visiting exotic locales, and learning about the problems and motivations of my own species by observing the behavior of other animals: a Merlynesque tuition in which a latter-day King Arthur would find glorious fun. With research grants and commercial assignments from breeders, I could easily parlay my studies into a sound living, and make my residence wherever my preferences took me.>

<JoergWalter: <Our society has an unfortunate habit of reserving its highest accolades for posthumous award.>

Fool-told ya so!!!

Luck? Absolutely. When you see the runaway success of something like "Fifty shades..." there can be no doubt that success doesn't always guarantee talent. Sometimes being in the right place at the right time can be most of what you need.

We don't yet know which is the most important. Malcolm Gladwell argues in Outliers that success is often due to external factors (such as the date of your birth) plus your own efforts - eg most geniuses are the product of 10,000 hours of focused practice.

There is much that we don't know. What we do know is that it is highly dubious to make sweeping statements attributing success or failure to just one or two factors. People who work hard don't always succeed. People who fail don't always have a drink problem. People who don't make money shouldn't automatically be classed as failures. And for every child who is a "chip off the old block" there is another who is nothing like mother or father.

Nature vs nurture? One day science might give a definitive answer. 50/50? 60/40? 70/30? In either direction. But one thing seems absolutely certain. This will only apply to a population as a whole - an average across a large number of people. We will continue to see huge variations in causality when it comes to individuals.

At some point in the article they speak of geneticists, yet the chief conductor of the experiment is a psychologist and the journal in which it appeared is a psychology one.

Additionally:

<"The biggest factor we found was self control. There was a big genetic difference in [people's ability to] restrain themselves and persist with things when they got difficult and react to challenges in a positive way.">

Yet it's been found (published some years ago in 'Cognition') and reproduced that deceiving the children before they participate in the marshmallow test changes <60% how many of them are able to wait the full 15''.

And a similar thing was found with an M&Ms reward boosting children IQ test's results by <10%.

<JoergWalter: The nature / nuture debate was/is an ideological one. However, when I see my kids I can assure you it is nature.>

How do you know it's not ideological in your case?

<With the necessary genes and the determination/character to make it you will. Unfortunately, the world is full of "unsuccessful talents" blaming a bad fate, adverse conditions or a dad that could not (financially in most cases) support their ambitions for their failure. Lame excuses for poor effort.>

Should that ever happen again, look the editor in the eye and calmly inform him that you sent the priests ahead in time, and they will reappear in the *next* book.

One of two things will happen. Either the editor will sign you to a contract for a sequel, or you will be escorted from the building by security while the editor slowly and sadly shakes his head.

Tsk tsk. What a waste of chronodiegetic resources.

Characters in a time warp can be immensely useful. In a sense, they immortalize the narrative, because it remains unresolved until they are disposed of.

If I were you, I'd have the 18 priests miraculously restored to life, under the condition that they re-enter the time warp for an unspecified (but auctorially expeditious) period.

Keep this up, and you will always have the whip hand of your editors.

Or something.

How do you know it's not ideological in your case?>

The critical question here is, how do you know?

Assuming you're talking about aspects of personality and behavior as distinguished from physical traits, you couldn't isolate those factors from environment (the upbringing you're giving them) unless the children were raised from birth without contact with you.

Are they still in the fields we know?