"The rare person is still interested in new advances when they are adults. There is possibly a correlation with intelligence. In any case, you have to be fairly bright to keep learning and changing attitudes as you get older"
About this Quote
The line about "possibly a correlation with intelligence" is doing careful double duty. As a scientist, Henson can’t quite claim causation without evidence, but he also knows exactly what he’s insinuating: resistance to new ideas may be less about lack of information than lack of cognitive flexibility. That hedge ("possibly") reads like scientific modesty and rhetorical permission slip at the same time, letting him deliver an uncomfortable judgment while preserving the posture of empiricism.
The real subtext is about status and ego. Adults often have more to lose from admitting they’re wrong - reputations, politics, investments, entire self-stories. Keeping up with "new advances" isn’t just reading papers; it’s tolerating the humiliation of updating beliefs in public, abandoning obsolete certainties, and accepting that yesterday’s competence might be today’s ignorance.
In context, this fits a late-20th/early-21st-century anxiety: accelerating tech and science make intellectual complacency more costly. Henson’s intent isn’t to flatter the curious; it’s to warn that intelligence, if it means anything, has to show up as continual revision under pressure.
Quote Details
| Topic | Learning |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Henson, Keith. (2026, January 16). The rare person is still interested in new advances when they are adults. There is possibly a correlation with intelligence. In any case, you have to be fairly bright to keep learning and changing attitudes as you get older. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-rare-person-is-still-interested-in-new-126406/
Chicago Style
Henson, Keith. "The rare person is still interested in new advances when they are adults. There is possibly a correlation with intelligence. In any case, you have to be fairly bright to keep learning and changing attitudes as you get older." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-rare-person-is-still-interested-in-new-126406/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"The rare person is still interested in new advances when they are adults. There is possibly a correlation with intelligence. In any case, you have to be fairly bright to keep learning and changing attitudes as you get older." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-rare-person-is-still-interested-in-new-126406/. Accessed 10 Feb. 2026.
