Editing Genius The Transgression/Chapter One: The Cosmos (section)

===Mad Scientist Population Demographics===
''So Who Here Is A Genius?''

The Inspired really are good at statistics. So, who becomes a mad scientist?

According to Genius: A Complete Psychological Breakdown, published by Ayako Von Schreber and Bob "Doc" Sandwich in 2005, the Inspired are primarily drawn from the scientific, academic, and educational fields. It should come as no surprise that almost nine in ten Inspired work or worked in such fields: they are or were scientists, researchers, philosophers, sociologists, professors, mathematicians, engineers, technicians, medical doctors, or computer experts. Many others are drawn from related fields: Inspired populations boast many librarians, historians, field guides, teachers, explorers, mechanics, architects, and all-purpose scholars. This is 
what geniuses call the breeding pool, the usual "spawning ground" for new geniuses.

Of those geniuses with their origins in mortal science, about 60% came to Inspiration naturally, in the course of independent study. The rest were deliberately guided and spent time as beholden. Either this was a period of apprenticeship before the inchoate geniuses were allowed to embrace their full power, or they were intended to remain as mere servants and technicians, but grew Inspired of their own accord.

About 12% of geniuses become Inspired though they possess no particular scientific or technical background, nor formal training time under another genius. The old term for such a person was a raudus, a raw "lump" of genius. They possess no training, but they have raw talent and some kind of frantic drive that pushes them into a Breakthrough. The beat cop who sees one crime too many and decides to mess around with an armored suit, the mother whose children are menaced by mysterious underground machines and who ransacks libraries to find out how to stop them, the laborer who watches a loved one wither of untreatable cancer, and who starts asking around about "impossible" cures...all these people are geniuses for whom the Breakthrough comes first and mundane knowledge comes later.

One genius in three has a PhD or equivalent. (Two geniuses in three will claim to have a PhD or equivalent, or will put "Doctor," "Doc," or "Professor" in their names and not feel guilty about it.) This means that the Inspired population is an educated one. However, not every genius comes to her new life in the "traditional" manner of being a scientist and then going mad. Many, perhaps most, are hobbyists and come to Inspiration through those hobbies: amateur astronomers who see something they can't explain and are consumed with obsession, computer geeks whose machines start doing things that don't make sense, or graphic artists who 
stumble upon a color palette that produces impossible effects.

Many Inspired do not know what they are. It is estimated that between 30% and 50% of all geniuses have no idea that they are geniuses. Though many of these are noticed and introduced to the Peerage or Lemuria within a few years of their Breakthrough, some might go their whole lives entirely unaware of the larger communities in their midst. These are called lonesomes, and a genius is likely to encounter a few during her career. Most work alone; a few form isolated groups disconnected from the Peerage or Lemuria. Lonesomes are becoming increasingly rare in an increasingly connected world.

Of those geniuses who have connected with their colleagues, 45% belong to Lemuria, though that number is dropping, as Lemuria today sees few replacements. 35% are peers and belong to one of the foundations (or are rogues belonging to a collaborative made up of peers). The rest are rogues or belong to an unaffiliated program, either operating independently or in groups that have no connection to or interest in the politics of Lemuria or the Peerage.

There are a lot of Inspired, a fact that startled the Peerage when it was first discovered. Estimates are as high as one person in five thousand being a genius, though many are lonesomes with no idea of what they are. More conservative estimates make Inspired rarer, but there are still a good number of them in any major metropolitan area.

According to the available demographics, the Inspired are 56% male, 40% female, and 4% not answering to either gender identity, with those numbers equalizing slowly but steadily; male-female parity should occur around 2030 according to projections. This is an astonishing change from a 1913 questionnaire that indicated 71% of the Inspired population was male. This disparity is usually explained by the larger numbers of men in the technical sciences and other traditional sources of new geniuses. Among the different foundations, the Navigators are the most male-dominated (at 62%), while Directors, who draw more often from the 
humanities or "soft" sciences like sociology and psychology, have slightly more women (58%).

"Kid geniuses" aren't as common as many people think. (Though they are often as annoying as people think.) Minors make up 14% of the Inspired population, with one genius in 50 being under the age of 13. These "Wesleys" show a slight proclivity for computer science, with dimensional research also being popular.

Geniuses skew toward higher income levels, with few poor people or people in the Third World capable of affording the equipment and education level necessary even to begin the process of a Breakthrough. There are exceptions, however, to this grim economic determinism: sometimes people in desperate straits manage incredible Breakthroughs and escape their former lives in a burst of Inspiration.

Other than a touch of madness and a burning desire to create, though, geniuses today have less and less in common with one-another. They are no longer drawn from the traditional demographics of educated upper-class white males that dominated the Peerage in the 19th century. Even the traditional spawning grounds of the physical and computer sciences are growing proportionately thin. Breakthroughs now come from almost anywhere, and with the world more connected than it ever has been, a loose international community has formed among the Peerage, joining together people from all over the world and from entirely different walks of life.