那些有潛力成為美國下一個愛因斯坦的學生，在小學期間就能看出端倪，然而他們當中大多數人長大后沒有成為發明家。問題出在哪里？均等機會項目（Equality of Opportunity Project）的研究人員根據對專利、稅收記錄和考試分數的調查，來判斷哪些學生長大后成為了美國的發明家，哪些學生沒有。結果顯示，人生早期的限制就能決定這個美國人能否為社會貢獻出具有變革性的思想。

哈佛大學博士生、這次研究的第一作者亞力克斯·貝爾表示：“我有點震驚，在某人小學三年級的時候，根據其科學和數學的考試成績，你就能很大程度上判定這個人能否成為發明家。”

不過，即使是分數最高的學生，長大后成為發明家的概率也不高，除非他們是白種人，有著上流社會的背景。收入位列前1%的家庭中孩子成為發明家的概率，是中低收入家庭中孩子的10倍。白人小孩成為發明家的概率，是黑人小孩的3倍。而女性持有的專利數，在美國只占總專利數的18%。

要縮減這些差異，重點在于改變學生的環境，解決缺乏創新氛圍的問題。與發明家親密接觸，會增加孩子們長大后成為專利所有人的概率，尤其是在他們父母或社群其他成年人所處的領域。貝爾表示：“你無法成為你沒見過的那種人。擁有一位某種程度上與你相似的導師或行為榜樣，這很重要。”

例如，假設在一個世界里，女孩看見女發明家的頻率和男孩看見男發明家的頻率類似。意識到了這個問題，就相當于在挽留這些流失的愛因斯坦上邁出了第一步。貝爾表示：“這不只是一些人的生活脫離了我們所討論的軌跡。這件事對全社會而言都很重要。”（財富中文網）

本文的另一個版本登載于《財富》2018年1月1日刊，標題為“創造發明家”。

譯者：嚴匡正

Students with the potential to be America’s next Einstein can be identified in elementary school, yet most won’t grow up to be innovators. So where’s the disconnect? Researchers from the Equality of Opportunity Project examined patents, tax records, and test scores to determine which kids grow up to become inventors in the United States—and which ones do not. According to the findings, limitations that begin early in life help dictate whether a given American will contribute transformational ideas to society.

“I was a little shocked that you could know so much just by third grade about who’s going to become an inventor based on science and math test scores,” says Alex Bell, a doctoral student at Harvard and lead author of the study.

But even top-scoring students weren’t much more likely to grow up to be innovators unless they were boys from white, upper-class backgrounds. Children from the top 1% of household incomes were 10 times as likely to become inventors when they grew up as their middle- and low-income peers. White children were three times as likely as black children, and girls go on to hold just 18% of patents in the U.S.

Decreasing these disparities hinges on changing a student’s environment and correcting a lack of exposure to innovation. Proximity to inventors made children more likely to grow up to become patent holders, specifically in the same fields as their parents or other adults in their communities. “You can’t be what you can’t see,” Bell says. “Having a mentor or a role model that’s in some sense similar to you is important.”

Imagine a world where, for example, girls saw women inventors as often as boys see men inventors. Recognizing the problem, then, is the first step to retaining these lost Einsteins. “This is not just the lives of the people who fall out of the pipeline that we’re talking about,” Bell says. “This is something very important to all of society.”

A version of this article appears in the Jan. 1, 2018 issue of Fortune with the headline “Inventing the Inventors.”