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I don't care if it's oversimplified. The 10,000 hour rule is brilliant for getting people past the difficult stages of learning a new skill. Can't play guitar

I don't care if it's oversimplified. The 10,000 hour rule is brilliant for getting people past the difficult stages of learning a new skill. Can't play guitar? It's not because you were born without musical talent...it's because you haven't put in your time yet. Get to work. People aren't born playing guitar. They learn to play guitar...through practice...lots and lots and lots of practice...10,000 hours of practice! For me, this realization was life-changing. And yes, I learned to play the guitar at the age of 40 after reading Outliers because I then had faith that with enough hours of hard work that I could do it. And I did. And now playing music is one of my greatest pleasures in life.

nashadelic 10y ago
While I understand your point, the danger in this over simplification is that it encourages brute forcification. If 10k hours were only enough, our typing speed would keep increasing. But that's not the case; to improve you need to be challenged with a higher skill level requirement. For example, if you're at 100 WPM, use a typing tutor that requires 110. Otherwise you'll just stargnate.
- matwood 10y ago
  I believe Gladwell does say 'deliberate practice' so he agrees that time alone is not enough. It must be time well spent.
nostromo 10y ago
The question is if Malcolm Gladwell wants to be a Tony Robbins type author or a Steven Pinker type author. Both are fine. One is meant to be motivational, and one is meant to inform the public about science. Gladwell's reputation is one of a science-based author which brings with it extra scrutiny.
- gxs 10y ago
  Could not have said this better myself. I've struggled to articulate my dislike of Gladwell, but you've done it accurately here.
  - paulpauper 10y ago
    Upvoted. Its easy to forget, he is a journalist, albeit a very glorified one - not a scientist, although it's easy to see how he is often confused as one.
    - smt88 10y ago
      Journalists have as much responsibility to the truth as scientists. It is possible to entertain people using only the truth.
      - js2 10y ago
        Sure, but they're limited by not being experts in the subject matter they are reporting while at the same time attempting to distill it down into accessible language for the lay reader.
        iQuercus 10y ago
        Just because someone is proclaimed "expert" doesn't mean they are good at what they do. This is especially true for the softer fields that Gladwell writes in. At the end of the day it's up to you to determine if what you are reading is accurate. And if you don't have the tools, resources, or time to do so, you trust in experts at your own risk.
    - ebbv 10y ago
      Gladwell is not even a journalist: http://www.alternet.org/story/155770/is_malcolm_gladwell_america's_most_successful_propagandist_and_corporate_shill http://www.alternet.org/story/155770/is_malcolm_gladwell_ame...
- wmccullough 10y ago
  To some extent you're right and I see your point, but this is also a false dichotomy. Gladwell can be whatever he wants to be. He may be rooted in science, but let's be honest, 10,000 is a fairly arbitrary number. If the world couldn't figure out that 10,000 hours wasn't scientific, we may have a larger problem. I'm more mentally exhausted by the endlessness of pure contrarianism on the Internet. It gets worse and worse with each year and I'm losing my enjoyment of social communities.
  - Alex3917 10y ago
    > I'm more mentally exhausted by the endlessness of pure contrarianism on the Internet. This is because 'skeptic' content is by far the most cost effective to produce. You're piggy backing off someone else's fame, and the only demand you're making of your readers is that they not read the original source material for themselves, which isn't exactly a difficult sell.
  - argonaut 10y ago
    I think that perspective of exhaustion with contrarianism is part of the problem. There an excellent quote, which is "the amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it." It is really really easy for someone to write some BS (online or in print). Books and newspapers do it routinely. Blogs do it every day. And of course people on online forums do it every second. Unless you just write "You're wrong," it usually takes a lot more effort, volume, and words to refute the BS. So yes, it is often intellectually easier for people to be contrarian, but only because there is so much BS out there to refute. And it still takes more effort and volume to do so.
    - PhantomGremlin 10y ago
      Sadly, I've found myself doing this https://xkcd.com/386/ https://xkcd.com/386/ more often than I would like.
  - eyelidlessness 10y ago
    > I'm more mentally exhausted by the endlessness of pure contrarianism on the Internet. It gets worse and worse with each year and I'm losing my enjoyment of social communities. Let me be the first to say I agree. And I'm a contrarian! It just can't be possible that every discrepancy deserves the effort to refute and correct, and we're biologically trained to approximate as a matter of priority. It took me 9987 hours to learn that.
- pastProlog 10y ago
  Pinker is not a great example as a popularizer of science. He writes scientific books in layman's terms like The Language Instinct (which itself sometimes drifts off scientific canon into one explanation he favors over another in disputed areas). He also writes books like The Better Angels of Our Nature which are much more loosely connected to science in which he gives his opinion on human nature, politics, society etc. I agree with the Language Instinct since it sticks with our current scientific understanding of how the brain scientifically and mathematically creates grammar. I disagree with much of The Better Angels book since it contradicts many anthropological and archaeological studies of human societies.
  - toasterlovin 10y ago
    Genuinely curious: in what ways does Better Angels contradict studies of human societies?
    - pastProlog 10y ago
      You can read Marshall Sahlins, Lewis H. Morgan, Eleanor Leacock or others. One thing they say is the hunter-gatherer bands of 10,000 years ago (or the small handful which remain in the world's remaining wilderness today) are not as bad as they say. One thing is - the men in some of these bands work less than 40 hours a week. So in some respects, they are better off than a lot of people here (in some respects worse off). The basic idea is against the Panglossian idea that Voltaire talks about in Candide - that we're currently living in the best possible economic/political/etc. system. One counterpoint to that is every political system since the dawn of time has held up people like Pinker who say we're living in the best of all possible systems and the other ones are awful, people need a strong government to keep them in check, and so forth. People didn't need a strong government to keep them in check 10,000 years ago, 20,000, 30,000 when they were painting buffalos in caves and so forth.
      - OvidNaso 10y ago
        >One counterpoint to that is every political system since the dawn of time has held up people like Pinker who say we're living in the best of all possible systems and the other ones are awful, people need a strong government to keep them in check, and so forth. Pinker never says anything like this I can remember and it doesn't even sound like something like something he talks about. Could you point out something that lead you to this interpretation?
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  I see your point, though I don't find your examples particularly compelling. Stephen Jay Gould, Isaac Asimov, Sir Patrick Moore, or Vaclav Smil strike me as better examples, drawing from personal experience. I'm actually having a fair bit of trouble coming up with a good example of a contemporary scientific author I'd recommend unhestitatingly. Hrm.
  - bharath28 10y ago
    Where would you put Richard Dawkins? His science books? I've always found them to be methodical and instructive.
    - dredmorbius 10y ago
      He's in. A larger part of my confusion is that I'm doing some massive revision -- call it a refactoring -- of my worldview. Not an absolute overturning, but tossing off massive amounts of cruft, teasing out the odd bits of real truth, and digging further for more connections. Many of the more insightful authors I could name simply aren't very well known. Many aren't in the hard sciences, though some (again, Smil delves there) are. Generally I'd point very hard at many of the folks associated with the Santa Fe Institute (Geoffrey West, W. Brian Arthur, David Krakauer, Sander van der Leuuw, J. Doyne Farmer), and others. Since I'm reassimilating and assessing, a lot's up in the air. I'd considered a few other names, mostly older -- Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov. I'd give slightly stronger cred to Asimov than Sagan, I think Asimov was more grounded in science, while Sagan tended to get a bit fuzzy. Though I also give Sagan serious credit for his attacks on bullshit and pseudo-science. To a large extent though I'm mining more distant authors -- the past 250-300 years. Adam Smith (though largely revising my "conventional wisdom" assessment of him), Charles Darwin (quite possibly the most significant scientist of all time), Newton, Aldo Leopold, Howard and Eugene Odum, Alfred Lotke, William Ophuls (though more politics). It's complicated.
      - bharath28 10y ago
        Completely agree on Asimov. I spent a quite a bit of my childhood reading anything that was written by Asimov that i could lay my hands on. I always felt so much in awe at the kinds of things he'd make me think about. I'll have to check out the Sante Fe Institute stuff - thanks for the recommendations!
- swiftisthebest 10y ago
  He's a Gladwell type author.
- mathattack 10y ago
  There have been enough criticisms of Gladwell that I put him somewhere inbetween - perhaps closer to James Altucher of James Gleik?
- Tiquor 10y ago
  Except Gladwell didn't "get us wrong". People who read Gladwell and misinterpreted it "got us wrong". Gladwell has spoken repeatedly and clarified his book statements, Though if you read it closely there isn't much clarification needed.
  - deleted 10y ago
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  - threepipeproblm 10y ago
    I am confused by the comment. You think the researchers whose work Gladwell based his book on are WRONG about Gladwell getting it wrong, even though they explain the problems fairly well and you haven't addressed any of the specific points? Curious to know what qualifies you to know they have the wrong interpretation of their own work... have you even read it, or do you feel qualified to say this based on a reading of Gladwell alone? Also, Gladwell has repeatedly "clarified", but if he didn't "get it wrong" why would there be a need to do this?
    - Tiquor 10y ago
      "Got us wrong" implies a fundamental inaccuracy in the concept. There is not a fundamental inaccuracy in the concept. Clarification is need to explain the nuance. In regards to interpretations of their own work. They have largely spoken at arms length from what I'be seen and the book was popular enough to have lots of comments made via reporterst etc. I'm not claiming some coBS piracy, just the nature of these things. Gladwell addresses this two years ago: http://www.businessinsider.com/malcolm-gladwell-explains-the-10000-hour-rule-2014-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/malcolm-gladwell-explains-the... To specifically address criticisms. One of then claim that deliberate practice is only 1/3 of the result. Gladwell, in his clarification, and original statements did not claim that deliberate practice was the only component. That was the misunderstanding from his book, not his intent.
    - Tiquor 10y ago
      "Got us wrong" implies a fundamental inaccuracy in the concept. There is not a fundamental inaccuracy in the concept. Clarification is need to explain the nuance. In regards to interpretations of their own work. They have largely spoken at arms length from what I've seen and the book was popular enough to have lots of comments made via reporterst etc. I'm not claiming some conspiracy, just the nature of these things. Gladwell addresses this two years ago: http://www.businessinsider.com/malcolm-gladwell-explains-the-10000-hour-rule-2014-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/malcolm-gladwell-explains-the... To specifically address criticisms. One of then claim that deliberate practice is only 1/3 of the result. Gladwell, in his clarification, and original statements did not claim that deliberate practice was the only component. That was the misunderstanding from his book, not his intent.
matwood 10y ago
People may not do it consciously, but it is a defense mechanism used to understand why they cannot do something. I recently had a huge argument with some friends about drawing. They said some innate talent was needed to which I said no, practice is all that is needed. Anyone can take some classes, and spend time to become passable at something like drawing. Greatness is where practice and innate talent intersect.
- scottlocklin 10y ago
  I've definitely seen counterexamples to this, regarding drawing. Some people are visual thinkers, and some, despite thousands of hours of attempts, aren't. There is such a thing as innate talent. Do you think anyone can be a world class physicist or mathematician with 10,000 hours practice? What about sprinters, programmers or entrepreneurs? I certainly don't. Not any of the above. I think people who achieve a high level of performance have almost certainly put in a lot of practice, but the reason they keep practicing is they have some natural aptitude for what they're practicing. Gladwell's myth is comforting to our present elites who claim to have gotten where they are via hard work, and keeps the peace with the rubes.
  - scott_s 10y ago
    Do you know anyone who has practiced drawing for, literally, thousands of hours and is not competent at it? I find that difficult to believe. There are people who can't form mental images, but that is considered a neurological condition (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11554894 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11554894). I believe such people may never be competent at drawing, but that's not usually what people mean by "visual thinker." Personally, I think people put too much emphasis on "natural talent." There may be such a thing, but yes, I think that dedicated, deliberate practice over long periods of time is what makes the biggest difference, and it can beat out "natural talent" in the long run. But, I'm not entirely convinced "natural talent" is a thing. I'm unsure what is real and what is perceived and cultural myth on this subject.
    - nostrebored 10y ago
50CNT 10y ago
First, congratulations on learning the guitar, I'm really happy that it brings joy to your life. However, research in the area of expert performance shows that when it comes to this practice, not just the amount, but the type of practice matters tremendously. How practice is done is such a major factor in improvement that taking the 10,000 hour rule by itself is like solving physics problems with the formula F = a instead of F = ma. Research in the area shows that performers usually plateau after reaching competence, which is the point they no longer struggle with regular operations. At this point, automaticity takes over, which for example is the reason that whilst most people can walk, few get consistently better at it despite walking a lot. This means, that out of the 10,000 hours put into learning the task, 9,000 are potentially wasted. In order to leave plateaus, one needs engage in "deliberate practice", a term coined by the cognitive psychologist Anders Ericsson. It's presence, or lack thereof has been shown across a wide variety of disciplines between masters and people who are merely good after having spent similar amounts of time on practice. Deliberate practice is practice where you consciously strain for a point that is just outside your current skill level. In the case of musicians for example, it can manifest as slowing down a song to a crawl until every note is hit in the right way, and then slowly speeding up or slowing down again at the line where one starts making mistakes. My point is that whilst the 10,000 hour rule is useful for setting time expectations to become a master at a task and helps illustrate how expertise is attainable for all of us if we put in the time and work, it lacks predictive power for whether you will become great at something after spending this amount of time. For a hobby, this may only result in some wasted practice time getting to competence(I've eyeballed this at about a factor of 2 doing some testing learning the piano, unscientific, I know), which is perfectly fine. You're doing it for fun. Pain periods and all. For an occupation, however, it can lead to endless grief. You've read about the 10,000 hour rule, you want to become very good, but after a year of work, you don't ever become significantly better. You sit there, grasping at the problem, but it's elusive, like you're wildly tweaking screen settings things to fix a kernel bug. I am also oversimplifying a bit for brevity here, but there's some books on the topic. For an in depth review, there's the "Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance"[0]. For a lighter book more along the lines of Outliers, theres "The Talent Code"[1] by Daniel Coyle. AFAIK, both draw from the Cambridge book. Both of them are worth a look, the 10,000 hour rule might tell you "I can do it", but these will tell you "How to do it". [0][https://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Expertise-Performance-Handbooks-Psychology/dp/0521600812 https://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Expertise-Performance-Handb...] [1][https://www.amazon.com/Talent-Code-Greatness-Born-Grown/dp/0099519852?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0 https://www.amazon.com/Talent-Code-Greatness-Born-Grown/dp/0...]
paulpauper 10y ago
IMHO there are certain tasks where the rule is more applicable, and others were it isn't. I think music and athleticism involve flow states and muscle memory, whereas math and writing tend to be more cognitively demanding and involve more structure and rules, and you either have the talent to do well or you don't, and such talent tends to manifest at a very early age. The 10000 hours is the amount of practice that allows an already talented person to possibly compete at the world-class.
mcguire 10y ago
He didn't oversimplify it, he simply misstated it. 10,000 hours will make you an advanced student in a very competitive field, if you are the kind of person who will put in long practice into that field. It might still be a question of musical talent; the students in question would certainly be the ones born with talent. Further, it's dedicated practice, not noodling around and not performing. Finally, 10,000 hours isn't any kind of magic number. It wasn't enough to make those students masters, and I would bet that you haven't put in anywhere near that many to achieve a level of skill that satisfies you. About the only thing that comes out right is that to develop a skill, you need to practice. Which, to quote my own least favorite phrase, we already knew.
- thoman23 10y ago
  > About the only thing that comes out right is that to develop a skill, you need to practice. Which, to quote my own least favorite phrase, we already knew. Everybody knows they need to practice. But at least for me, the 10,000 rule set my expectations properly. Knowing that "practice" means 20 hours a week for 10 years helped me get past the temptation to quit when things aren't so easy in the beginning.
  - mcguire 10y ago
    Or it could have convinced you not to try: 20 hours a week for 10 years? Are you crazy?
- rukuu001 10y ago
  I think the kicker here is that if you are a born musical genius (and there are such things) those 10K hours will get you on a world stage. Otherwise, as you say: > advanced student in a very competitive field...
  - chongli 10y ago
    That's an unfalsifiable claim. The corollary is "well you didn't make it on the world stage, that proves you aren't a born musical genius".
RogerL 10y ago
This is not supported by the data. All it says is that the very best practices more than the extremely good. There is no evidence that prolonged practice leads to exceptional performance.
- Tiquor 10y ago
  You seem to be arguing semantics more than nuance. You aren't trying to say that practice doesn't matter. Right? Instead, it is debatable how much it differentiates the absolute best from those just below? If so, I think the "No evidence" is a bit strong in this case. We may lack what would commonly be considered "proof" but there are good indications that practice matters.
ebbv 10y ago
The 10,000 hour rule does more damage than good. Guitar is a perfect example to illustrate why. a) It doesn't take 10,000 hours to be halfway decent at guitar. If all you want to do is be able to strum the chords for most popular music, you should be able to do that in way less than 10,000 hours. b) Even 10,000 hours isn't going to turn you into Stevie Ray Vaughan or Walter Becker. There's lots of guitar players out there with way more than 10,000 hours who are damn good and still aren't those guys. The 10,000 hour rule as Gladwell presents it makes people believe that time investment is key in developing a skill and that's just not true for all skills. c) 10,000 hours is such an arbitrary number as to be totally meaningless. As guitar perfectly illustrates, it's almost never going to be the right number. For most people who just want to be able to strum some Beatles tunes, that's way too much time. For people who want to be Yngwie Malmsteen, it's not enough. But it's not just guitar, most skills are like this. The 10,000 hour number is totally meaningless. How much time you need to invest into a skill depends on what your goals are with that skill, and also how good you are at related skills that feed into that ability already. The 10,000 hour meme needs to be taken out back, hit with a shovel and buried. It's awful.
- kinleyd 10y ago
  The idea of the 10,000 hour rule has been quite a motivation for me, but you do put your arguments very well. Like most people I've never taken the 10,000 hours as an absolute yardstick, just that you will be rewarded in proportion to the effort you put in. Of course, it's hard to slap a slick rule name on it when put that way.
kinleyd 10y ago
I started two years, after I'd crossed 50, with the same conviction. Outliers, The Talent Code and Talent Is Overrated were what inspired me. I believe there is natural talent, but it's much rarer than we like to believe. Perseverance and knowing how to learn are much more accessible to the general population and that's what I'm betting on. Like you I am drawing my greatest happiness playing the guitar. I'm still some ways from mastery, but I am making good and measurable progress.
thetruthseeker1 10y ago
The author agrees with Gladwell that to become pretty "good" at anything you will need to work hard at it(10K hrs). But the theme of the book is 'outliers', and Gladwell over simplifies saying that all it takes to be an outlier is 10000 hrs of work - which is not the case apparently, some people achieved this without as much effort and it is likely some people require a lot more effort than 10K hrs to be "as" good and considering that, it is not really clear what the outlier benchmark cutoff hrs is. The underlying message which Gladwell conveys that to be outlier at anything, all you need is 10,000 hrs of work does not seem to hold true for all individuals in all fields.

nashadelic 10y ago

While I understand your point, the danger in this over simplification is that it encourages brute forcification. If 10k hours were only enough, our typing speed would keep increasing. But that's not the case; to improve you need to be challenged with a higher skill level requirement. For example, if you're at 100 WPM, use a typing tutor that requires 110. Otherwise you'll just stargnate.

matwood 10y ago
I believe Gladwell does say 'deliberate practice' so he agrees that time alone is not enough. It must be time well spent.

nostromo 10y ago

The question is if Malcolm Gladwell wants to be a Tony Robbins type author or a Steven Pinker type author. Both are fine. One is meant to be motivational, and one is meant to inform the public about science. Gladwell's reputation is one of a science-based author which brings with it extra scrutiny.

gxs 10y ago
Could not have said this better myself. I've struggled to articulate my dislike of Gladwell, but you've done it accurately here.
- paulpauper 10y ago
  Upvoted. Its easy to forget, he is a journalist, albeit a very glorified one - not a scientist, although it's easy to see how he is often confused as one.
  - smt88 10y ago
    Journalists have as much responsibility to the truth as scientists. It is possible to entertain people using only the truth.
    - js2 10y ago
      Sure, but they're limited by not being experts in the subject matter they are reporting while at the same time attempting to distill it down into accessible language for the lay reader.
      - iQuercus 10y ago
        Just because someone is proclaimed "expert" doesn't mean they are good at what they do. This is especially true for the softer fields that Gladwell writes in. At the end of the day it's up to you to determine if what you are reading is accurate. And if you don't have the tools, resources, or time to do so, you trust in experts at your own risk.
  - ebbv 10y ago
    Gladwell is not even a journalist: http://www.alternet.org/story/155770/is_malcolm_gladwell_america's_most_successful_propagandist_and_corporate_shill http://www.alternet.org/story/155770/is_malcolm_gladwell_ame...
wmccullough 10y ago
To some extent you're right and I see your point, but this is also a false dichotomy. Gladwell can be whatever he wants to be. He may be rooted in science, but let's be honest, 10,000 is a fairly arbitrary number. If the world couldn't figure out that 10,000 hours wasn't scientific, we may have a larger problem. I'm more mentally exhausted by the endlessness of pure contrarianism on the Internet. It gets worse and worse with each year and I'm losing my enjoyment of social communities.
- Alex3917 10y ago
  > I'm more mentally exhausted by the endlessness of pure contrarianism on the Internet. This is because 'skeptic' content is by far the most cost effective to produce. You're piggy backing off someone else's fame, and the only demand you're making of your readers is that they not read the original source material for themselves, which isn't exactly a difficult sell.
- argonaut 10y ago
  I think that perspective of exhaustion with contrarianism is part of the problem. There an excellent quote, which is "the amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it." It is really really easy for someone to write some BS (online or in print). Books and newspapers do it routinely. Blogs do it every day. And of course people on online forums do it every second. Unless you just write "You're wrong," it usually takes a lot more effort, volume, and words to refute the BS. So yes, it is often intellectually easier for people to be contrarian, but only because there is so much BS out there to refute. And it still takes more effort and volume to do so.
  - PhantomGremlin 10y ago
    Sadly, I've found myself doing this https://xkcd.com/386/ https://xkcd.com/386/ more often than I would like.
- eyelidlessness 10y ago
  > I'm more mentally exhausted by the endlessness of pure contrarianism on the Internet. It gets worse and worse with each year and I'm losing my enjoyment of social communities. Let me be the first to say I agree. And I'm a contrarian! It just can't be possible that every discrepancy deserves the effort to refute and correct, and we're biologically trained to approximate as a matter of priority. It took me 9987 hours to learn that.
pastProlog 10y ago
Pinker is not a great example as a popularizer of science. He writes scientific books in layman's terms like The Language Instinct (which itself sometimes drifts off scientific canon into one explanation he favors over another in disputed areas). He also writes books like The Better Angels of Our Nature which are much more loosely connected to science in which he gives his opinion on human nature, politics, society etc. I agree with the Language Instinct since it sticks with our current scientific understanding of how the brain scientifically and mathematically creates grammar. I disagree with much of The Better Angels book since it contradicts many anthropological and archaeological studies of human societies.
- toasterlovin 10y ago
  Genuinely curious: in what ways does Better Angels contradict studies of human societies?
  - pastProlog 10y ago
    You can read Marshall Sahlins, Lewis H. Morgan, Eleanor Leacock or others. One thing they say is the hunter-gatherer bands of 10,000 years ago (or the small handful which remain in the world's remaining wilderness today) are not as bad as they say. One thing is - the men in some of these bands work less than 40 hours a week. So in some respects, they are better off than a lot of people here (in some respects worse off). The basic idea is against the Panglossian idea that Voltaire talks about in Candide - that we're currently living in the best possible economic/political/etc. system. One counterpoint to that is every political system since the dawn of time has held up people like Pinker who say we're living in the best of all possible systems and the other ones are awful, people need a strong government to keep them in check, and so forth. People didn't need a strong government to keep them in check 10,000 years ago, 20,000, 30,000 when they were painting buffalos in caves and so forth.
    - OvidNaso 10y ago
      >One counterpoint to that is every political system since the dawn of time has held up people like Pinker who say we're living in the best of all possible systems and the other ones are awful, people need a strong government to keep them in check, and so forth. Pinker never says anything like this I can remember and it doesn't even sound like something like something he talks about. Could you point out something that lead you to this interpretation?
dredmorbius 10y ago
I see your point, though I don't find your examples particularly compelling. Stephen Jay Gould, Isaac Asimov, Sir Patrick Moore, or Vaclav Smil strike me as better examples, drawing from personal experience. I'm actually having a fair bit of trouble coming up with a good example of a contemporary scientific author I'd recommend unhestitatingly. Hrm.
- bharath28 10y ago
  Where would you put Richard Dawkins? His science books? I've always found them to be methodical and instructive.
  - dredmorbius 10y ago
    He's in. A larger part of my confusion is that I'm doing some massive revision -- call it a refactoring -- of my worldview. Not an absolute overturning, but tossing off massive amounts of cruft, teasing out the odd bits of real truth, and digging further for more connections. Many of the more insightful authors I could name simply aren't very well known. Many aren't in the hard sciences, though some (again, Smil delves there) are. Generally I'd point very hard at many of the folks associated with the Santa Fe Institute (Geoffrey West, W. Brian Arthur, David Krakauer, Sander van der Leuuw, J. Doyne Farmer), and others. Since I'm reassimilating and assessing, a lot's up in the air. I'd considered a few other names, mostly older -- Carl Sagan and Isaac Asimov. I'd give slightly stronger cred to Asimov than Sagan, I think Asimov was more grounded in science, while Sagan tended to get a bit fuzzy. Though I also give Sagan serious credit for his attacks on bullshit and pseudo-science. To a large extent though I'm mining more distant authors -- the past 250-300 years. Adam Smith (though largely revising my "conventional wisdom" assessment of him), Charles Darwin (quite possibly the most significant scientist of all time), Newton, Aldo Leopold, Howard and Eugene Odum, Alfred Lotke, William Ophuls (though more politics). It's complicated.
    - bharath28 10y ago
      Completely agree on Asimov. I spent a quite a bit of my childhood reading anything that was written by Asimov that i could lay my hands on. I always felt so much in awe at the kinds of things he'd make me think about. I'll have to check out the Sante Fe Institute stuff - thanks for the recommendations!
swiftisthebest 10y ago
He's a Gladwell type author.
mathattack 10y ago
There have been enough criticisms of Gladwell that I put him somewhere inbetween - perhaps closer to James Altucher of James Gleik?
Tiquor 10y ago
Except Gladwell didn't "get us wrong". People who read Gladwell and misinterpreted it "got us wrong". Gladwell has spoken repeatedly and clarified his book statements, Though if you read it closely there isn't much clarification needed.
- deleted 10y ago
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- threepipeproblm 10y ago
  I am confused by the comment. You think the researchers whose work Gladwell based his book on are WRONG about Gladwell getting it wrong, even though they explain the problems fairly well and you haven't addressed any of the specific points? Curious to know what qualifies you to know they have the wrong interpretation of their own work... have you even read it, or do you feel qualified to say this based on a reading of Gladwell alone? Also, Gladwell has repeatedly "clarified", but if he didn't "get it wrong" why would there be a need to do this?
  - Tiquor 10y ago
    "Got us wrong" implies a fundamental inaccuracy in the concept. There is not a fundamental inaccuracy in the concept. Clarification is need to explain the nuance. In regards to interpretations of their own work. They have largely spoken at arms length from what I'be seen and the book was popular enough to have lots of comments made via reporterst etc. I'm not claiming some coBS piracy, just the nature of these things. Gladwell addresses this two years ago: http://www.businessinsider.com/malcolm-gladwell-explains-the-10000-hour-rule-2014-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/malcolm-gladwell-explains-the... To specifically address criticisms. One of then claim that deliberate practice is only 1/3 of the result. Gladwell, in his clarification, and original statements did not claim that deliberate practice was the only component. That was the misunderstanding from his book, not his intent.
  - Tiquor 10y ago
    "Got us wrong" implies a fundamental inaccuracy in the concept. There is not a fundamental inaccuracy in the concept. Clarification is need to explain the nuance. In regards to interpretations of their own work. They have largely spoken at arms length from what I've seen and the book was popular enough to have lots of comments made via reporterst etc. I'm not claiming some conspiracy, just the nature of these things. Gladwell addresses this two years ago: http://www.businessinsider.com/malcolm-gladwell-explains-the-10000-hour-rule-2014-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/malcolm-gladwell-explains-the... To specifically address criticisms. One of then claim that deliberate practice is only 1/3 of the result. Gladwell, in his clarification, and original statements did not claim that deliberate practice was the only component. That was the misunderstanding from his book, not his intent.

matwood 10y ago

People may not do it consciously, but it is a defense mechanism used to understand why they cannot do something. I recently had a huge argument with some friends about drawing. They said some innate talent was needed to which I said no, practice is all that is needed. Anyone can take some classes, and spend time to become passable at something like drawing. Greatness is where practice and innate talent intersect.

scottlocklin 10y ago
I've definitely seen counterexamples to this, regarding drawing. Some people are visual thinkers, and some, despite thousands of hours of attempts, aren't. There is such a thing as innate talent. Do you think anyone can be a world class physicist or mathematician with 10,000 hours practice? What about sprinters, programmers or entrepreneurs? I certainly don't. Not any of the above. I think people who achieve a high level of performance have almost certainly put in a lot of practice, but the reason they keep practicing is they have some natural aptitude for what they're practicing. Gladwell's myth is comforting to our present elites who claim to have gotten where they are via hard work, and keeps the peace with the rubes.
- scott_s 10y ago
  Do you know anyone who has practiced drawing for, literally, thousands of hours and is not competent at it? I find that difficult to believe. There are people who can't form mental images, but that is considered a neurological condition (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11554894 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11554894). I believe such people may never be competent at drawing, but that's not usually what people mean by "visual thinker." Personally, I think people put too much emphasis on "natural talent." There may be such a thing, but yes, I think that dedicated, deliberate practice over long periods of time is what makes the biggest difference, and it can beat out "natural talent" in the long run. But, I'm not entirely convinced "natural talent" is a thing. I'm unsure what is real and what is perceived and cultural myth on this subject.
  - nostrebored 10y ago

50CNT 10y ago

First, congratulations on learning the guitar, I'm really happy that it brings joy to your life. However, research in the area of expert performance shows that when it comes to this practice, not just the amount, but the type of practice matters tremendously. How practice is done is such a major factor in improvement that taking the 10,000 hour rule by itself is like solving physics problems with the formula F = a instead of F = ma. Research in the area shows that performers usually plateau after reaching competence, which is the point they no longer struggle with regular operations. At this point, automaticity takes over, which for example is the reason that whilst most people can walk, few get consistently better at it despite walking a lot. This means, that out of the 10,000 hours put into learning the task, 9,000 are potentially wasted. In order to leave plateaus, one needs engage in "deliberate practice", a term coined by the cognitive psychologist Anders Ericsson. It's presence, or lack thereof has been shown across a wide variety of disciplines between masters and people who are merely good after having spent similar amounts of time on practice. Deliberate practice is practice where you consciously strain for a point that is just outside your current skill level. In the case of musicians for example, it can manifest as slowing down a song to a crawl until every note is hit in the right way, and then slowly speeding up or slowing down again at the line where one starts making mistakes. My point is that whilst the 10,000 hour rule is useful for setting time expectations to become a master at a task and helps illustrate how expertise is attainable for all of us if we put in the time and work, it lacks predictive power for whether you will become great at something after spending this amount of time. For a hobby, this may only result in some wasted practice time getting to competence(I've eyeballed this at about a factor of 2 doing some testing learning the piano, unscientific, I know), which is perfectly fine. You're doing it for fun. Pain periods and all. For an occupation, however, it can lead to endless grief. You've read about the 10,000 hour rule, you want to become very good, but after a year of work, you don't ever become significantly better. You sit there, grasping at the problem, but it's elusive, like you're wildly tweaking screen settings things to fix a kernel bug. I am also oversimplifying a bit for brevity here, but there's some books on the topic. For an in depth review, there's the "Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance"[0]. For a lighter book more along the lines of Outliers, theres "The Talent Code"[1] by Daniel Coyle. AFAIK, both draw from the Cambridge book. Both of them are worth a look, the 10,000 hour rule might tell you "I can do it", but these will tell you "How to do it". [0][https://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Expertise-Performance-Handbooks-Psychology/dp/0521600812 https://www.amazon.com/Cambridge-Expertise-Performance-Handb...] [1][https://www.amazon.com/Talent-Code-Greatness-Born-Grown/dp/0099519852?ie=UTF8&*Version*=1&*entries*=0 https://www.amazon.com/Talent-Code-Greatness-Born-Grown/dp/0...]

paulpauper 10y ago

IMHO there are certain tasks where the rule is more applicable, and others were it isn't. I think music and athleticism involve flow states and muscle memory, whereas math and writing tend to be more cognitively demanding and involve more structure and rules, and you either have the talent to do well or you don't, and such talent tends to manifest at a very early age. The 10000 hours is the amount of practice that allows an already talented person to possibly compete at the world-class.

mcguire 10y ago

He didn't oversimplify it, he simply misstated it. 10,000 hours will make you an advanced student in a very competitive field, if you are the kind of person who will put in long practice into that field. It might still be a question of musical talent; the students in question would certainly be the ones born with talent. Further, it's dedicated practice, not noodling around and not performing. Finally, 10,000 hours isn't any kind of magic number. It wasn't enough to make those students masters, and I would bet that you haven't put in anywhere near that many to achieve a level of skill that satisfies you. About the only thing that comes out right is that to develop a skill, you need to practice. Which, to quote my own least favorite phrase, we already knew.

thoman23 10y ago
> About the only thing that comes out right is that to develop a skill, you need to practice. Which, to quote my own least favorite phrase, we already knew. Everybody knows they need to practice. But at least for me, the 10,000 rule set my expectations properly. Knowing that "practice" means 20 hours a week for 10 years helped me get past the temptation to quit when things aren't so easy in the beginning.
- mcguire 10y ago
  Or it could have convinced you not to try: 20 hours a week for 10 years? Are you crazy?
rukuu001 10y ago
I think the kicker here is that if you are a born musical genius (and there are such things) those 10K hours will get you on a world stage. Otherwise, as you say: > advanced student in a very competitive field...
- chongli 10y ago
  That's an unfalsifiable claim. The corollary is "well you didn't make it on the world stage, that proves you aren't a born musical genius".

RogerL 10y ago

This is not supported by the data. All it says is that the very best practices more than the extremely good. There is no evidence that prolonged practice leads to exceptional performance.

Tiquor 10y ago
You seem to be arguing semantics more than nuance. You aren't trying to say that practice doesn't matter. Right? Instead, it is debatable how much it differentiates the absolute best from those just below? If so, I think the "No evidence" is a bit strong in this case. We may lack what would commonly be considered "proof" but there are good indications that practice matters.

ebbv 10y ago

The 10,000 hour rule does more damage than good. Guitar is a perfect example to illustrate why. a) It doesn't take 10,000 hours to be halfway decent at guitar. If all you want to do is be able to strum the chords for most popular music, you should be able to do that in way less than 10,000 hours. b) Even 10,000 hours isn't going to turn you into Stevie Ray Vaughan or Walter Becker. There's lots of guitar players out there with way more than 10,000 hours who are damn good and still aren't those guys. The 10,000 hour rule as Gladwell presents it makes people believe that time investment is key in developing a skill and that's just not true for all skills. c) 10,000 hours is such an arbitrary number as to be totally meaningless. As guitar perfectly illustrates, it's almost never going to be the right number. For most people who just want to be able to strum some Beatles tunes, that's way too much time. For people who want to be Yngwie Malmsteen, it's not enough. But it's not just guitar, most skills are like this. The 10,000 hour number is totally meaningless. How much time you need to invest into a skill depends on what your goals are with that skill, and also how good you are at related skills that feed into that ability already. The 10,000 hour meme needs to be taken out back, hit with a shovel and buried. It's awful.

kinleyd 10y ago
The idea of the 10,000 hour rule has been quite a motivation for me, but you do put your arguments very well. Like most people I've never taken the 10,000 hours as an absolute yardstick, just that you will be rewarded in proportion to the effort you put in. Of course, it's hard to slap a slick rule name on it when put that way.

kinleyd 10y ago

I started two years, after I'd crossed 50, with the same conviction. Outliers, The Talent Code and Talent Is Overrated were what inspired me. I believe there is natural talent, but it's much rarer than we like to believe. Perseverance and knowing how to learn are much more accessible to the general population and that's what I'm betting on. Like you I am drawing my greatest happiness playing the guitar. I'm still some ways from mastery, but I am making good and measurable progress.

thetruthseeker1 10y ago

The author agrees with Gladwell that to become pretty "good" at anything you will need to work hard at it(10K hrs). But the theme of the book is 'outliers', and Gladwell over simplifies saying that all it takes to be an outlier is 10000 hrs of work - which is not the case apparently, some people achieved this without as much effort and it is likely some people require a lot more effort than 10K hrs to be "as" good and considering that, it is not really clear what the outlier benchmark cutoff hrs is. The underlying message which Gladwell conveys that to be outlier at anything, all you need is 10,000 hrs of work does not seem to hold true for all individuals in all fields.