The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation just announced its 2017 class of MacArthur Fellows—popularly (though unofficially) known as “genius grants.” (The MacArthur Foundation pointedly avoids the g-word.) Work in any field except elected office is eligible. Writers, mathematicians, voting rights activists, poets, archaeologists, healthcare administrators, geophysicists, human rights attorneys, astronomers—that’s just a narrow slice of the wide variety of careers that have produced geni…