Creativity And Precociousness - Negatively Correlated?

This is one of the most interesting posts I have read of late. It is so surprising (and actually not that surprising) that creativity is linked to great success while precociousness is not. Quotes:

"Consider the nation’s most prestigious award for scientifically gifted high school students, the Westinghouse Science Talent Search, called the Super Bowl of science by one American president. From its inception in 1942 until 1994, the search recognized more than 2000 precocious teenagers as finalists. But just 1 percent ended up making the National Academy of Sciences, and just eight have won Nobel Prizes. "

"Most prodigies never make that leap. They apply their extraordinary abilities by shining in their jobs without making waves. They become doctors who heal their patients without fighting to fix the broken medical system or lawyers who defend clients on unfair charges but do not try to transform the laws themselves.

So what does it take to raise a creative child? One study compared the families of children who were rated among the most creative 5 percent in their school system with those who were not unusually creative. The parents of ordinary children had an average of six rules, like specific schedules for homework and bedtime. Parents of highly creative children had an average of fewer than one rule."

It's unreal, I identify with this so closely.

I am reminded of Peter Keating And Howard Roark - classic example from Fountainhead. One was the first kind, the Roark the creative kind. How Keating topped the class and flunked life while Roark flunked college and topped life. Imagine the number of rules Keating's mom would have laid. And the number of rules Roark's parents would have laid.

One can imagine the kind of early circumstances in the lives of Chatur and Rancho in 3 Idiots as well.

A friend of mine has a son. She has raised him with very few rules to the best of my knowledge. I wonder what he would turn out like in 20 years time.

This is another very interesting link. Quotes from the link (without permission)

"What explains this sort of spectacular success? What makes someone rise to the top in music, games, sports, business, or science? This question is the subject of one of psychology’s oldest debates." 

"Along the same lines, biologist Michael Lombardo and psychologist Robert Deaner examined the biographies of male and female Olympic sprinters such as Jesse Owens, Marion Jones, and Usain Bolt, and found that, in all cases, they were exceptional compared with their competitors from the very start of their sprinting careers—before they had accumulated much more practice than their peers."

"It is therefore crucial to differentiate between the influence of genes on differences in abilities across individuals and the influence of genes on differences across groups. The former has been established beyond any reasonable doubt by decades of research in a number of fields, including psychology, biology, and behavioral genetics. There is now an overwhelming scientific consensus that genes contribute to individual differences in abilities. The latter has never been established, and any claim to the contrary is simply false."

"Wouldn’t it be better to just act as if we are equal, evidence to the contrary notwithstanding? That way, no people will be discouraged from chasing their dreams—competing in the Olympics or performing at Carnegie Hall or winning a Nobel Prize. The answer is no, for two reasons. The first is that failure is costly, both to society and to individuals. Pretending that all people are equal in their abilities will not change the fact that a person with an average IQ is unlikely to become a theoretical physicist, or the fact that a person with a low level of music ability is unlikely to become a concert pianist.

The second reason we should not pretend we are endowed with the same abilities is that doing so perpetuates the myth that is at the root of much inaction in society—the myth that people can help themselves to the same degree if they just try hard enough. You’re not a heart surgeon? That’s your fault for not working hard enough in school! You didn’t make it as a concert pianist? You must not have wanted it that badly. "

Wowowowow.

While deliberate practice seems to account for 20% of skills, genes seem be account for 38% as per this article.

Quote from this study "Elementary school teachers were then asked to rate their favorite and least favorite students based on these characteristics, There was a significant difference between the teachers' judgments of their favorite and least favorite students on these measures. Judgments for the favorite student were negatively correlated with creativity; judgments for the least favorite student were positively correlated with creativity."

Quote from here: 

Gifted children have three atypical characteristics: they are precocious, they learn differently from typical children (marching to their own drummer), and they are intensively motivated to learn (showing a rage to master). High IQ giftedness is sometimes global (with children showing equivalent abilities in both verbal and mathematical areas) but is also often very uneven. Children gifted in the arts are often labeled talented rather than gifted, but whether children are gifted academically or in the arts, they show the same three characteristics. Signs of giftedness emerge very early, in the first two or three years of life, and signs are domain-specific. Despite attempts to account for giftedness in terms of nurture, no evidence allows us to rule out the necessity of an innate component. Families of gifted children have a set of characteristics (e.g., child-centered, provide enriched environments, have high expectations, grant independence) but we cannot conclude that these characteristics cause giftedness to develop. The more extreme the gift, the more difficulty the child has finding others like him/herself, and thus the more likely the child will have social and emotional difficulties. The link between childhood giftedness and adult genius is weak: while many gifted children become excellent in their respective fields, most do not qualify as adult geniuses. The many possible reasons for this are discussed, including the fact that the skill of being a gifted child involves mastery of a domain, while the skill involved in being a genius involves transformation of a domain.

Quote from here: 

"The overriding trait, indeed, the definition-of intellectually gifted students is that they are developmentally advanced in language and thought."

"For example, a 5-year-old blind child visiting Rimm's clinic did long division and word problems with fractions in his head, had perfect pitch, and played Beethoven on the piano. Whereas his verbal skills were above average, they weren't yet precocious, perhaps related to his blindness or only a reflection of uneven abilities. Time would tell. "

As a general trend, gifted students are more sensitive to values and moral issues, and they intuitively understand why certain behavior is "good" and other behavior is "bad." Gifted children and youth are likely to develop, refine, and internalize a system of values and a keen sense of fair play and justice at a relatively early age. Not only is the child likely to be more fair, empathic,and honest, but he or she will evaluate others according to the same standards. It follows that gifted students are less likely to show antisocial or other behavior problems in school. 

Here I pause and wonder. What has gidted nature got to do with being fair? I am not able to relate the two (astrologically also). Fairness is a Saturnine trait and Saturn has nothing to do with being gifted. I would have said Rahu had to do with being gifted. Hmm.

The resolution of this apparent inconsistency-whether creativity is oris not related to intelligence-lies in the threshold concept: A base level of intelligence usually is essential for creative productivity; above that threshold (about IQ 120) there is virtually no relationship between measured intelligence and creativity.

Creative persons must be independent and confident; must be motivated and energetic; and must dare to make changes, challenge traditions, make waves, bend rules, and get out of the box-and they sometimes fail in the process.  

An important implication of distinguishing between intellectual and creative giftedness is that if students are selected for a gifted program upon the basis of scores in th e top 1 % to 5% in intelligence, the majori ty of creative students will be missed. Anoth er implication is that when asked to identify "gifted" students, as we noted earlier in this chapter, many teachers will quickly nominate the well-behaved, conforming, neat, and dutiful "teacher pleasers," rather than less conforming students who are highly creative and more unconventional. Also, in many classes (for example, math or science in the middle school) the special talents of the creatively gifted may not be required. Creative students, therefore, will be less visible and less likely to be nominated as "gifted" than highly intelligent students. Ultimately, the achievements and contributions to society of many highly creative students will surpass those of brighter, conforming grade-getters. 

Additional reading:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/imagine/201003/einstein-creative-thinking-music-and-the-intuitive-art-scientific-imagination

Pratyusha Banerjee

I was looking at Pratyusha's horoscope (to be used with Jagannath Hora software).

The poor girl committed suicide - she was only 24. I am only interested in her (vedic) astrologically.

I do not know her time of birth. So the positions of Moon, Lagna and Amsa positions will not be correct - especially those of Lagna and Amsa.

Pratyusha had Moon in own house in Cancer along with exalted Jupiter and Sun also in the same house with retrograde Saturn in own house in Capricorn aspecting the three planets.

From the moon there is a powerful Gajakesari yoga with ayushkaraka Saturn with digbala in the 7th in own house. Why should this combination result in early death?

MNP (Mobile Number Porting) - India

I am now trying to find out what recourse one has when a mobile number porting request is denied by the donor operator (existing operator). The porting is:

• Is within same circle
• All payments have been made till last bill
• Payment additionally has been made of Rs 150 in excess of unbilled amount at the time of initiating porting request.
• There  is no other porting request initiated on the same number
• And the number has been with the donor (existing) operator for more than 90 days.

In the current case the donor operator is Reliance Telecom.

What should one do? What options does one have. I am shocked to find the horror stories across most operators here. Is this how desperate operators are to hold on to existing customers? 

Additional reading:

1. http://telecomtalk.info/trivial-problems-faced-by-users-on-mnp-in-india/132747/
2. http://www.vodafone.in/discover/get-started/switch-to-vodafone-mumbai: This link identifies the reasons why a porting request may be denied.

Teri Berukhi Pakistani Serial On Zindagi Channel

Some of the characters:

http://www.tv.com.pk/celebrity/Sumbul-Iqbal/50/biography

http://www.tv.com.pk/celebrity/Savera-Nadeem/6/biography

Watch an episode: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x124lra_teri-berukhi-episode-3_news: my heart weeps for the man especially when he comes outside his house and expresses anguish non verbally... I just cant feel anything nice for the 1st wife - Saveera Nadeem.

I have tried to look at life from the first wife's point of view. Unfortunately I am unable to justify her nature. In a separate vein, her dress design leaves a lot to be desired. She is a woman who lives life largely based on her desires - her irresponsibility camouflaged as being open mindedness (just as a parochial nature is often hidden under the guise of being disciplined).

She seems to be a P (as in MBTI) while the husband is J - what an awful combination. 

The 2nd wife seems to resemble Preity Zinta, while the daughter reminds me of Tanuja.

Saveera Sadeem seems to be a wonderful actress, the script and direction is wowow. I can only compare it with a Tamil serial Deivam Thandha Veedu which I watch secondarily (meaning while someone else watches, I catch the side effects of watching it). The Tamil serial seems unreal to me. The storyline is something that I (a person with zero creativity) I wrote when I was in a bad mood. The character Seetha, Banumathy, Sudha Chandran - each one of them helps immensely if you want to give up being a couch potato. This serial is a must watch for those who want to lead a less sedentary life.

I don't, of course, mean to imply that the two serials mentioned above are typical examples of Pakistani and Tamil serials. 

When I compare some Tamil serials I am forced to watch (on Vijay TV) with the Pakistani serials that I was forced to watch, I see some differences. 

• Tamil serials seem to create an intense emotional drama with relatively normal day to day events - for example a child that cut her fingers or a wife that fainted. Pak serials seem to choose slightly out of the ordinary story line and take the characters through that.
• The background score decibel in Tamil increases to indicate the enormity of the emotions. To me it seems too jarring. I wish the background music or noise is low. Let the audience figure out how to react to the scene. Subtlety is severely lacking in Tamil.
• The lack in depth in the Tamil story line perhaps forces the characters to be defined in extreme ways to generate interesting scenes. I am left feeling yucky and bristling in anger while watching some of the characters. While watching Pak serials I have far less negative feelings. May be if the Tamil serials had less noise and if people spoke in softer tones I wouldn't mind so much.

This leads to the question: What is the average person, watching the serial, like? What is he looking for? I guess he likes more heart than thought provoking stuff.

Have a Urdu dictionary handy while watching Pak serials in Zindagi channel.

Classic P (as IN MBTI) And T Vs J Vs P

http://m.thehindu.com/opinion/open-page/put-it-off-and-be-creative/article8406249.ece: Creativity in procrastination.

When I first met some P's in my life I didn't understand them. I thought they were unprioritized, irresponsible, undisciplined.

When I got to know a P well, I understood later. They were prioritized, except they didn't think every job had to be done right now, every decision to be taken immediately and the subject closed. They have their goals clear, who is IN in their life and who is not. Their resources and efforts are spent on what / who is IN and not based on what is their responsibility to do. They may make a marginal attempt to do things which are not their priority but which still are job to do, if circumstances demand it.

As the author describes, not all decisions need to be taken right now, many may become irrelevant with time, more options may come up later which would make decision making easier.

More importantly as another P (let's call him Y) told me about a colleague (let's call the colleague X) of his: X would say that it's important not to do things immediately. One should wait until the issue becomes critical. The effort then spent (X said) on solving the issue is appreciated much more. While doing anything, (X continued) one should always see what rewards are associated with doing it and what penalties are associated with not doing it. Y was very impressed with X.

Y himself told me many  decades back... "If you are going to do something good for someone it's important to ensure that it becomes known. If no one knows about the good thing you did, you might not have done it at all."

Of course, the author has not talked about the things that X and Y did. The latter are from my personal experience. But they kind of throw some more light to the nature of a P. 

Neither does the author seem to have considered that the behavior of procrastination (that of a P) is not a chosen one. Meaning one doesn't choose to procrastinate. Each of us is built in a certain way. Some of us are P's and some are J's - each with some pros and some cons.

A conversation with a friend resulted in some more thoughts.

Why was Y impressed with X, despite both being P's? Y was impressed with X because X had something that Y could learn. 


My friend asked me whether altruism and J always went together and and selfishness with P. She was referring to Y's belief that a good deed done without anyone getting to know might as well not have been done.

I am not saying (most) J's are altruistic and that most P's are selfish but FP's are usually selfish - opposite of Ayn Rand's kind of selfishness. Ayn Rand selfishness is very obvious. FP's selfishness and avarice is not obvious, theirs being shrouded in well meaning words and packaged well. One has to peel the layers to sense it.

Difference between T, J and P
T's operate with their thought. The decision about something is based on what is logical (not necessarily on what is conventional). An NT operates with the adult state while an ST may not.

J's orientation in life is to complete all tasks they are responsible and strive to have zero pending tasks at any point in time. They do not focus on their feelings - if a job is to be done, it has to be done and on time too.. No matter what. J's set of things to be done is always based on protocol. They are strict, and operate largely with the parent state. P's are usually concerned about their own selves first and foremost. Nothing is more important than their feelings. All tasks can wait until they feel it's the right time to do the job. Barring a few people for whom they might give their life for.... all other things and people are secondary to P's.

A T and a J can sound similar because both seem to driven by rules and not by their heart..The T is driven by the mind or logic while the J by conventions and protocol.

An F and a P often seem very similar to me. An F processes things with his heart than with his mind. An F can be driven by protocol and be meticulous, organized in case he is a J. A P can be driven by thought also instead of by F. A P's focus is NO RULES / PROTOCOLS. 

TJ's are inflexible (J) and do not generally think with their heart (T). Can you imagine how heartless they would seem? FP's on the other heart follow their heart (P) and use their heart when they walk through life unshackled by convention and protocols. (P)

A strong FP (high energy one) usually thinks of himself as being superior. And that rules that apply to others do not apply to him. And this is where an FP may become more obnoxious than a NT who is not particularly strong with his feelings. 

A simple question asked of an FP often would not elicit a simple answer. The response would be preceded by a calculation involving what the person asking is looking for, what the best answer would be to keep the relationship with that person at a desired level. The tendency to "calculate" for important things is phenomenal in FP's despite their stronger F.

A J would look more disciplined and organized while he would also be inflexible, nagging. A P would look sweet, flexible etc and she is also likely to come across as being undisciplined. 

All the P's I know negotiate a lot, meaning they would not assume anything is fixed or inflexible. And they are very good at it. I guess it doesn't matter whether they EP's or IP's.

Wonderful XVV

Have a wonderful, peaceful and blessed XVV. 

An Interesting Thing About Primes

I read this article today: http://www.wired.com/2016/03/mathematicians-discovered-prime-conspiracy/. It was very interesting, so I read more about primes and Mersenne primes. Then I came across a theorem that goes like this:
if 2^n-1 (where ^ refers to exponentiation and let's call that expression "n exp" henceforth) is a prime, then n is also prime. 

Exponentiation explained:

2^3=2*2*2 (3 times) = 8

3^2 =3*3 (2 times) =9 

I was like what??? Though there was a link to a proof, I wanted to study this myself. 

Armed with Microsoft excel and a laptop, I started looking up values for this "n exp" for various positive integral values of n. I used formulas to find out whether the "n exp" was a prime or not. I could only go up to n=49 (due to some limitations: "n exp" was a 15 digit number for n=49) which was good enough to start with. I had tweak the excel a little to improve performance. MS Excel 2016 performance beceme horrible when the number of rows exceeded 60,000.

• Where n was a multiple of 4, 2^n would always end in the digit 6 and "n exp" would end in the digit 5,  hence would always be a multiple of 5 and so "n exp" will not be a prime.
• Where n was a multiple of 2, "n exp" always turned out to be a multiple of 3. Actually this point, covers values of n in the previous point also making the previous point redundant. That left only odd values of n to look at. 
• Actually where n is a multiple of 2 (let's say n=2k), "n exp" becomes 2^2k - 1 = (2^k)^2 - 1^2 = (2^k + 1) * (2^k - 1). Hence "n exp" is composite for even values of n. The only exception is when k =1, "n exp" = 3 whose factors evaluate to 1 and 3, yet 3 is still prime for obvious reasons.
• Now we come to the case where n is odd. Here I found an interesting thing. Where n was a multiple of 3, "n exp" always had 7 as a factor. For example: with n = 3, 6, 9, "n exp" equals 7, 63, 511: each of which is a multiple of 7. This was weird. I didn't know there were hints / rules for finding whether a number was a multiple of 7. I wanted to see if this was always true. I tried to use induction. 
• Let's say n=3a where a is a positive integer.
• "n exp" = 2^3a-1 =7k (being a multiple of 7)
• 2^3a=7k+1
• Evaluate "n exp" for the next value of a (=a+1): 2^(3(a+1))-1 = 2^3a * 2^3 -1 = 8(2^3a) - 1 = 8(7k+1) -1 = 56k +8  - 1 = 56k +7 = 7 * (8k+1). Proved through induction. Remember k is an integer.

I had proved that "n exp" is a composite when n is an even number. Now coming to the point of "n exp" being always a composite even when n is an odd composite... my thoughts are these.

Let us assume n = a*b where a and b are both odd integers. n will then be an odd composite number.
2^(ab)-1
=(2^a)^b - 1 which has factor 2^a-1 as per factoring rule number 7 here. 

• Incidentally when a=3, 2^a-1 = 8-1 = 7.  Hence 7 is a factor of "n exp" whenever n is a multiple of a=3. 
• Same way, whenever n is a multiple of 5, "n exp" is a multiple of 31. And so on.

The same proof could be used for cases where n is an even number. I guess I went in a roundabout fashion!!.

The next thing to look at is: why is "n exp" a composite for some prime values of n such as 11, 23, 29, 37, 41, 43 etc.

• Where n=11, "n exp" has 23 as a factor.
• Where n=23, "n exp" has 47 as a factor.
• Where n=29, "n exp" has 233, 1103, 2089 as factors. Obviously each factor will have another corresponding factor equaling which is the quotient of "n exp" and the original factor. 
• When n=37, "n exp" has 223 as a factor.
• When n=41, "n exp" has 13367 as a factor.
• When n=43, "n exp" has 431 as a factor.
• When n=47, "n exp" has 2351 as a factor.
• The question I have is: what is common to 11, 23, 29, 37, 41, 43, 47? How come "n exp" is not a prime for these values of n? is there a pattern to the factors listed above (23, 47, 233 etc)?

The first few Mersenne primes apparently are: 2, 3, 5, 7, 13, 17, 19, 31, 61, 89, 107, 127, 521, 607. I have confirmed with my working on excel the Mersenne primes till 31. 

Additional reading:

• https://primes.utm.edu/notes/74207281.htm
• https://primes.utm.edu/lists/small/10000.txt
• https://primes.utm.edu/lists/small/millions/ 
• http://primes.utm.edu/mersenne/index.html
• https://www.quantamagazine.org/20130519-unheralded-mathematician-bridges-the-prime-gap/

How Do Birds And Animals Know What Food Is Good For Them?

This is a question I pondered. The other day I saw a crow trying to drink from a pool of fresh cow urine. It took a sip, probably didn't find the taste good and flew away.

How do snails or dogs or birds know what is good or what is poisonous and to be avoided?

Then I read this article. In 30 years, storks in Portugal had changed their migrating behavior and their food habits as well. 

I guess the answer is partly intuition coming from memories from across generations which they carry in their genes / DNA and just plain experimenting as the storks must have done.

Root Cause Analysis (RCA)

I had previously mentioned about LEH and her rather horrendous experience one night when she was about to leave for home from school. 

The purpose of this post is to narrate a recent similar incident and try to understand the root cause.

Couple of days back she was in a meeting with the vice principal (VP) of her school discussing some question paper that she, LEH, had set. LEH narrated the incident that happened after the meeting with the VP to another person (TN) - LEH requested TN not to reveal the details to me. 

And obviously TN lost no time in calling me up.

For the benefit of my readers I will try to present the incident briefly - in bullet points.

• LEH completes the meeting with the VP at 6:45PM in the VP's room, which is in the ground floor. 
• LEH remembers that her own bag is in the staff room which is 50 feet away but in the 1st floor.
• At that ungodly hour most of the staff would have left for home.
• LEH is reminded of the previous incident and vows to play it safe this time. She meets Meeramma at 6:48PM, who also works in the school and asks her whether anyone is up there. Meeramma replies in the affirmative "Yes, God is".
• LEH, by this time shaking just a little, explains to Meeramma that her question was not a philosophical one. Was there any person in the 1st floor - LEH rephrased the question.
• Meeramma, being the efficient soul that she is, replied that LNU -  a male teacher -  was in the 1st floor.
• 6:50:12PM: LEH starts climbing the steps. At this point, to describe what really happened, I am going to show a video -  this scene from the movie Chandramukhi is very very similar to what happened to LEH. Watch the video and Alt-Tab and continue reading here - so you will get a kinda running commentary of the events that unfolded in the school in the next few crucial seconds.
• 6:50:12 to 6:50:28: LEH kept calling to LNU knowing that LNU had to be up there. Meeramma was never wrong. She belonged to the group of personnel in the school who always knew who was where and doing what. If Meeramma said that someone was in the 1st floor then even God didn't have a choice. God had better beam that someone to the 1st floor pronto. 
• LEH reached the 1st floor and frantically searched for LNU. 
• By the time it was 6:50:22PM, LEH was in a state of stupor and stumbling just as you see vadiveLEH at the end in the video.
• At 6:50:28PM, LEH located LNU who was sound asleep in a room. 

I am told that LEH has no memory of subsequent events and she doesn't know how she reached home that night. Unfortunately for her, lightning did strike the same place (at 6:45PM too).

Now if we do a quick recap and analysis of the events described above:

1. We can't blame the VP for ending the meeting at 6:45PM. Some meetings are known to extend till the milkman comes to deliver.
2. We can't blame LEH for wanting to pick her purse up from her workplace. 
3. We can't blame LNU for not responding immediately to my friend's call. He was in deep slumber considering the late hour. His choice of a room that wasn't visited often is also easily understandable. We all know how stressful it is to maintain a sweet innocent facade, that too in front of about 50 women.

Now who was responsible for this incident? Why did my friend LEH go through this painful incident (that too, once again)? 

And I squarely blame one person - Meeramma. Meeramma knows all. She is expected to know all that goes around, even about such things that don't go around. 
She knew that LEH would be trembling as she climbed the steps and calling out LNU's name, she knew where LNU was, in what state he would be in and that LNU would not be able to reply to LEH's call. All this would have flashed through the mind of the fiend Meeramma in a fraction of a second.  And yet Meeramma allayed LEH's fears and encouraged (at least allowed) LEH to go up to the 1st floor all alone knowing what would ensue subsequently.

Meeramma.... Vechutangaya aappu ("diye dilen baansh" in Bengali for those that aren't familiar with colloquial Tamil).

PS:

There could be some minor discrepancies in my recounting of the incident. You see, I didn't see the incident with my own eyes. I heard it from another source who heard it from yet another source. I have done my best to accurately present the events of that fateful day. 

Astrology And Partner Matching

I was discussing compatibility issues with a friend using MBTI theory as a reference point. As an example, how it would be for an NT to live under the same roof as an SF or for an NF to live with an ST. 

My friend asked me whether Vedic astrology also didn't try to check compatibility of would be spouses and if so why was it unable to prevent wrong matches. Good question, I thought.

Here is my thought. Vedic astrology is a thousand years old. Very little got added to that body of science (or art) since 1000AD. And the purpose of matching was primarily to ensure that the man and women had equal longevity (so neither was widowed early) and that they could have children.

So long as the charts of Man A and Woman B indicated that they had equal or good longevity and that progeny was indicated in their combination, it was deemed a good match. Of course, other factors such as looks, wealth, education were also considered but  these were outside of the scope of astrological horoscope matching.

Now, we can see that the matching did not include aspects of  compatibility of their natures. 

As to why it didn't, I have to recall a conversation that I had with another friend who lives in a joint family. Her mother in law told her that the amount of time that a man and a wife spend together is at most 3 or 4 hours. The rest of the time the man is out at work or with his friends or brothers / uncles etc. And the woman spends most of the time inside the house with children and other women in the house. That being the case, where is the need for great compatibility like in the case of Darcy and Elizabeth?

If Elizabeth and Bingley had been married to each other and lived in a joint family with Bingley's 3 brothers and their wives and children and with his parents, would their marriage have been a colossal failure? Probably not.

In the last 1000 years (more likely in the last 50  years), the family has become more nuclear. A woman sees no other close relative other than her husband on a daily basis and hence she has a higher need for compatibility. This is true for the husband as well. There are no brothers or uncles for him.

Such a situation as we have now was not known to the people that lived 1000 years ago. Maybe that's the reason Vedic astrology "screws up" while matching horoscopes - because we are expecting things that were not within scope when the sages founded astrology.