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Stable Introverts. One of Stanley's main disappointments is that for still disputed reasons, few girls test well on math (TIME, March 14). Those who do qualify for the special tutorials tend to drop out, and their feeling for the boys in the program is "almost one of revulsion," he says, because the girls view their male counterparts as socially immature. So far, he maintains, the boys seem to have few emotional problems. "Scientists are stable introverts," says Stanley. "They are not highly impulsive and tend to act rationally." Furthermore, he adds, it has been "demonstrated empirically" that mathematically gifted boys become interested in girls much later in life. "This has been a great asset in the early-entrance program because it gives them more time to study," he says approvingly.
Stanley's five Johns Hopkins protégés seem almost too dedicated to their calling. Spare-time reading tends toward math and science books, with a little science fiction thrown in for leavening. Favorite hobbies include, not surprisingly, chess and bridge. Stark and Camerer, however, seem drawn to nonscientific pastimes—Stark to softball and ragtime music on the trombone. Camerer to journalism. He has been writing stories about fashions and fishing for the Beachcomber, a free weekly published in Ocean City, Md.
For the future, most of the Johns Hopkins prodigies envision high-powered research careers following Ph.D. studies at—variously—the University of Chicago, Cornell, M.I.T. and Princeton. Three—Dietz, Stark and Kotschenreuther—have received National Science Foundation fellowships, prestigious grants awarded each year for advanced research. And Stanley is willing to bet on them all—using probability theory, of course—for "original contributions."