It might be selection bias on my part, but as far as I've seen if someone is able to comprehend a concept like social graph, he's on his way to becoming a nerd. Even being able to handle social relationships on abstract level[1] require insights of mathematical concepts, on the level that is not taught to majority of human population.
That's why I dislike all those 'nerds suck at XXX', whether it's about maths, physics or computer nerds. All of those groups are good at maths, which is basically applied thinking, and thus is applicable not only to computers, but to real life as well. So, given a problem and no domain expert around, I'd definitely trust nerd or an engineer more than anyone else.
[1] - as in, go meta and talk about things like social graphs, how they evolve, transform, while having a clear model in ones head.
It might be selection bias on my part, but as far as I've seen if someone is able to comprehend a concept like social graph, he's on his way to becoming a nerd. Even being able to handle social relationships on abstract level[1] require insights of mathematical concepts, on the level that is not taught to majority of human population.
That's why I dislike all those 'nerds suck at XXX', whether it's about maths, physics or computer nerds. All of those groups are good at maths, which is basically applied thinking, and thus is applicable not only to computers, but to real life as well. So, given a problem and no domain expert around, I'd definitely trust nerd or an engineer more than anyone else.
[1] - as in, go meta and talk about things like social graphs, how they evolve, transform, while having a clear model in ones head.