6 ms·

This is a case where I really doubt that the studies referenced in the article were rigorous/well controlled. There are WAY too many talent "hot zones" (small

This is a case where I really doubt that the studies referenced in the article were rigorous/well controlled. There are WAY too many talent "hot zones" (small training clubs that produce an extremely inordinate number of champions) for me to be swayed without iron-clad evidence to the contrary. The author talks about being motivated, but I don't think she really understands the scale of motivation. Mozart would typically play until his fingers bled, and they grew somewhat deformed from the volume of playing as a youth. When he wasn't playing, I'm willing to bet he was thinking about or somehow otherwise engaged with music. That is the kind of passion that makes a true master. The author also talks about her teacher being good. Compared to what? How many music teachers did she have? If teaching ability is normally distributed, even if she had 20 teachers (extremely doubtful), the best teacher in the country is probably two standard deviations above anyone she had in skill. That is a freaking huge difference. Outside of certain things like being a gymnast or a football lineman where body morphology is absolutely critical, I'm pretty sure talent is overrated. The exact amount of influence it exerts certainly depends on the activity, but I doubt in most cases that it exceeds 2-3 percentile point shift in absolute potential. Unfortunately, when you are at the highest level of competition (e.g. olympics) the spread is probably somewhere between 99.9 and 99.999, so someone at 96.9 isn't going to be competitive.

bagacrap 10y ago
Wouldn't a small, elite training club only take in a relatively small number of athletes that have already shown innate talent? Likewise, top universities will turn out a large number of top scientists. They've already selected for potential at the point of admission.
- carsongross 10y ago
  You may as well try to reason a Catholic out of the Virgin Birth, friend. I should know. I'm Catholic.
  - reitanqild 10y ago
    Heads up: I think you are downvoted mostly because people fail to see the link (I didn't either). (Yes, another Christian here, although not Catholic. There seems to be a few of us here only it seems we mostly try to stay technical.)
- lmm 10y ago
  It should be possible to rule that kind of thing. I recall an anecdote about four table-tennis champions who lived on the same street, and their families hadn't moved in years - rather it was simply that an excellent coach lived on that street and offered to teach anyone who was interested.
- jacobolus 10y ago
  What about the Polgár sisters? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/László_Polgár https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/László_Polgár
  - eveningcoffee 10y ago
    It appears, after reading this article, that the sisters actually had a very talented father and therefore possibly very good prerequisites to become what they did. He should have accepted the proposed experiment of raising adoptees the same way he did with his children.
- sn9 10y ago
  There are other fairly common examples without that sort of filtering of applicants. High school academics and athletics are good places to look. Genetics don't explain how a good coach can turn around a school's athletic program to the point of taking a team to the state championship or how a good teacher can take a population of students with a history of failure and dropping out and turn them into students who score 5's on AP calculus exams.
reddytowns 10y ago
You say the author must be wrong because of lack of compelling evidence, and then you propose the opposite without any evidence. Why does it have to be confirmed either way? Why can't you admit you just don't know? It seems to me that by going into things with the idea that you know something that you don't is just limiting your own ability to discover new information about it. Reality is a complicated landscape. By simplifying every question into a predefined yes or no, you are providing a disservice to yourself, and by espousing it vehemently enough so that others believe you, you are also providing them with a disservice. End of rant.
- CuriouslyC 10y ago
  Part of the problem is that if you admit the idea talent plays a primary role in success, it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Research by Carol Dweck has shown that people's own belief in their ability to improve strongly predicts their actual improvement. Given things like talent hot zones and the Polgar sisters, which to me demonstrate talent isn't a big deal, the level of evidence needed to change my mind is going to be very high. Particularly since believing in talent is so maladaptive. The only benefit to a belief in talent is ego protection for those who live in mediocrity.
  - reddytowns 10y ago
    Then the idea that belief becomes a self fulfilling prophecy should be explored and understood. That one poorly understood idea (nature vs nurture) affects another poorly understood idea (that belief of something may help cause it to be true) and may somehow harm you is no reason not to explore them both, since you'll just stagnate.
    - CuriouslyC 10y ago
      How exactly am I stagnating by not lending plausibility (and thus some tacit acceptance) to a demonstrably self-limiting belief absent absolutely iron-clad evidence in its favor? I'm not a research psychologist who makes a living or derives self-worth studying expertise. Remember, I'm not completely discounting talent and fostering unrealistic expectations. In fact, I explicitly stated I believe talent is necessary to succeed at the highest level (i.e. medaling at the olympics). I just think even if you are un-talented, if you do everything right you can still be in the ~97-99th percentile in terms of ability (depending on the activity) which is objectively still pretty awesome.
BadassFractal 10y ago
Talent is definitely a thing, morphology of the brain is absolutely relevant. Unfortunately most of us confuse great skill with innate talent, hence these endless articles. There are people out there with whom we simply cannot compete regardless of how much hard work we put in. They have advantages over the rest of us that we won't be able to overcome. Variability of brain structures is even more dramatic than visible physical variability in human beings. With visible traits, you have people who are 4'5" tall and those who are 7' tall. Within the brain the differences of the areas responsible for different functions are much greater: competing against someone with the right combination of brain structures is like an average person competing with a 60' tall basketball player. IIRC there are something like 50 different areas of the brain that are continuously being permuted in size with each next generation. If you get incredibly lucky and get just the right combination of areas that reinforce each other in a certain task (e.g. hand / eye coordination, spatial visualization etc.) you might be a genius. What's fascinating is that we are terrible at finding cognitive geniuses because we have no way yet (or desire) to accurately scan one's brain before death. We most likely fail to detect most geniuses that are born by forcing them to do stuff that doesn't leverage their superior internal hardware. The fact is that there are a few incredibly rare specimens out there, the Michael Phelpses, Grigori Perelmans, Ramanujans, George Soroses of their respective mental fields, and no amount of hard work will help one compete against them in whatever area they excel in. However, they're also so rare that it's pointless to optimize "best practices" for their cases, the vast majority of us will need a ton of quality practice to become good. It appears that these lucky hands are dealt across all races, so IMO the ratial aspect of this is not as important. What's going to be less acceptable to society is being able to know pretty early on (in your later teens actually, when brain development mostly concludes) that someone is not actually that talented. At least early on the elite and the tiger parents will be quite disappointed to find out that their kid is actually not really that gifted or special and might be better off having a very menial career. Sure, you can still try to paint, compose, advance the state of mathematics, but once we're able to consistently identify people who will be naturally 10x better than you at that, you going for it will be a waste of time for society as a whole.
- ap22213 10y ago
  That statement doesn't align with what I'd learned studying physical anthropology. That is, Almost all genetic adaptations that have been observed across Homo Sapiens have been environmental physical adaptations. I'm not saying that it's wrong - just that I didn't learn it that way (But, I could have went to college too long ago).
abecedarius 10y ago
I've never heard about Mozart's fingers bleeding -- do you have a source? I just ran a web search and found a suggestion that he suffered from rickets in infancy, accounting for curved fingers.
- sotojuan 10y ago
  I've never heard of it either, but it's well known that Mozart both played a ton in his youth and actually worked hard when composing. Most people seem to think he was just sitting there and symphonies came to his head at random.
- CuriouslyC 10y ago
  It was mentioned in a book I read about talent, which I believe sourced it from an old Mozart biography. Like many stories about legends, it could certainly be apocryphal.
cageface 10y ago
I'm pretty sure talent is overrated. but I doubt in most cases that it exceeds 2-3 percentile point shift I think we'd all like to believe that we can do anything we want if we try hard enough but where is your evidence? This is not a matter for good wishes but scientific proof. It's pretty clear that some physical variations contribute tremendously to ability in sports so it's illogical to accept on faith that no such similar variations exist in the brain.
- CuriouslyC 10y ago
  I agree that the natural variability in potential is such that an average person isn't going to ever get sufficiently good to medal at an olympics, or even attend one (except perhaps in unpopular sports). You shouldn't let the fact that your natural limit is only the 99th percentile instead of the 99.99th percentile make you feel like a failure though, you're still awesome. One thing I have noticed is that some people learn a skill much faster than others. That being said, the people who learn more slowly seem to reach about the same level eventually, it just takes them longer.
  - cageface 10y ago
    I have not found that to be the case in software development. Some people get good very quickly and others are still mediocre after ten years of coding. That doesn't necessarily prove that coding ability is innate, of course, but it at least suggests that effort alone is not enough.
    - CuriouslyC 10y ago
      There's an old saying... Some people have 10 years of experience, others have one year repeated 10 times. If you're running a race, it doesn't matter how much effort you put in if you're going in the wrong direction. In many cases the ones with "talent" are the ones that chose a direction at random that just happened to be roughly correct. The root of the issue is that most people don't approach learning and skill development in anything even remotely close to a methodical, focused manner. They "just do it" and hope that the magical improvement fairy will sprinkle skill-dust on them while they sleep. Maybe they read a book or some articles from time to time, and occasionally think to apply the things they read, but that is about it. Do you think that these same people would take that approach if someone put a gun to their family and said "master XYZ or they die" ?
dredmorbius 10y ago
"The author also talks about her teacher being good. Compared to what? How many music teachers did she have?" pg has a comment on programmers -- you can only tell how good one is by working with them, and there's only so many programmers you can work with. In the areas of teaching, programming, and training, there's the problem that it takes a very high level of proficiency within an area even to assess the abilities of another. Measures of quality are inherently subjective and limited -- assessement, which is to say information acquisition -- is itself highly expensive. This is quite related to Dunning-Kruger, though approaching a different element of the problem. If humans are going to proceed down a track of increased complexity, we're going to have to address how to sensibly make and compare assessments which cannot all be performed by any single entity, but must be reasonably inferred through slightly shared, but very often independent assessments. I've been around numerous fields in which I hear (very frequently novice) initiates claiming the praises of some particular methodology, teacher, or reference. On my own assessment, all too frequently the case seems to be that the endorser is promoting a concept which is at best useful as a first step, occasionally outright harmful, but is not some holy grail. (And yes, very occasionally there are exceptions.) It's a thorny problem.

bagacrap 10y ago

Wouldn't a small, elite training club only take in a relatively small number of athletes that have already shown innate talent? Likewise, top universities will turn out a large number of top scientists. They've already selected for potential at the point of admission.

carsongross 10y ago
You may as well try to reason a Catholic out of the Virgin Birth, friend. I should know. I'm Catholic.
- reitanqild 10y ago
  Heads up: I think you are downvoted mostly because people fail to see the link (I didn't either). (Yes, another Christian here, although not Catholic. There seems to be a few of us here only it seems we mostly try to stay technical.)
lmm 10y ago
It should be possible to rule that kind of thing. I recall an anecdote about four table-tennis champions who lived on the same street, and their families hadn't moved in years - rather it was simply that an excellent coach lived on that street and offered to teach anyone who was interested.
jacobolus 10y ago
What about the Polgár sisters? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/László_Polgár https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/László_Polgár
- eveningcoffee 10y ago
  It appears, after reading this article, that the sisters actually had a very talented father and therefore possibly very good prerequisites to become what they did. He should have accepted the proposed experiment of raising adoptees the same way he did with his children.
sn9 10y ago
There are other fairly common examples without that sort of filtering of applicants. High school academics and athletics are good places to look. Genetics don't explain how a good coach can turn around a school's athletic program to the point of taking a team to the state championship or how a good teacher can take a population of students with a history of failure and dropping out and turn them into students who score 5's on AP calculus exams.

reddytowns 10y ago

You say the author must be wrong because of lack of compelling evidence, and then you propose the opposite without any evidence. Why does it have to be confirmed either way? Why can't you admit you just don't know? It seems to me that by going into things with the idea that you know something that you don't is just limiting your own ability to discover new information about it. Reality is a complicated landscape. By simplifying every question into a predefined yes or no, you are providing a disservice to yourself, and by espousing it vehemently enough so that others believe you, you are also providing them with a disservice. End of rant.

CuriouslyC 10y ago
Part of the problem is that if you admit the idea talent plays a primary role in success, it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Research by Carol Dweck has shown that people's own belief in their ability to improve strongly predicts their actual improvement. Given things like talent hot zones and the Polgar sisters, which to me demonstrate talent isn't a big deal, the level of evidence needed to change my mind is going to be very high. Particularly since believing in talent is so maladaptive. The only benefit to a belief in talent is ego protection for those who live in mediocrity.
- reddytowns 10y ago
  Then the idea that belief becomes a self fulfilling prophecy should be explored and understood. That one poorly understood idea (nature vs nurture) affects another poorly understood idea (that belief of something may help cause it to be true) and may somehow harm you is no reason not to explore them both, since you'll just stagnate.
  - CuriouslyC 10y ago
    How exactly am I stagnating by not lending plausibility (and thus some tacit acceptance) to a demonstrably self-limiting belief absent absolutely iron-clad evidence in its favor? I'm not a research psychologist who makes a living or derives self-worth studying expertise. Remember, I'm not completely discounting talent and fostering unrealistic expectations. In fact, I explicitly stated I believe talent is necessary to succeed at the highest level (i.e. medaling at the olympics). I just think even if you are un-talented, if you do everything right you can still be in the ~97-99th percentile in terms of ability (depending on the activity) which is objectively still pretty awesome.

BadassFractal 10y ago

Talent is definitely a thing, morphology of the brain is absolutely relevant. Unfortunately most of us confuse great skill with innate talent, hence these endless articles. There are people out there with whom we simply cannot compete regardless of how much hard work we put in. They have advantages over the rest of us that we won't be able to overcome. Variability of brain structures is even more dramatic than visible physical variability in human beings. With visible traits, you have people who are 4'5" tall and those who are 7' tall. Within the brain the differences of the areas responsible for different functions are much greater: competing against someone with the right combination of brain structures is like an average person competing with a 60' tall basketball player. IIRC there are something like 50 different areas of the brain that are continuously being permuted in size with each next generation. If you get incredibly lucky and get just the right combination of areas that reinforce each other in a certain task (e.g. hand / eye coordination, spatial visualization etc.) you might be a genius. What's fascinating is that we are terrible at finding cognitive geniuses because we have no way yet (or desire) to accurately scan one's brain before death. We most likely fail to detect most geniuses that are born by forcing them to do stuff that doesn't leverage their superior internal hardware. The fact is that there are a few incredibly rare specimens out there, the Michael Phelpses, Grigori Perelmans, Ramanujans, George Soroses of their respective mental fields, and no amount of hard work will help one compete against them in whatever area they excel in. However, they're also so rare that it's pointless to optimize "best practices" for their cases, the vast majority of us will need a ton of quality practice to become good. It appears that these lucky hands are dealt across all races, so IMO the ratial aspect of this is not as important. What's going to be less acceptable to society is being able to know pretty early on (in your later teens actually, when brain development mostly concludes) that someone is not actually that talented. At least early on the elite and the tiger parents will be quite disappointed to find out that their kid is actually not really that gifted or special and might be better off having a very menial career. Sure, you can still try to paint, compose, advance the state of mathematics, but once we're able to consistently identify people who will be naturally 10x better than you at that, you going for it will be a waste of time for society as a whole.

ap22213 10y ago
That statement doesn't align with what I'd learned studying physical anthropology. That is, Almost all genetic adaptations that have been observed across Homo Sapiens have been environmental physical adaptations. I'm not saying that it's wrong - just that I didn't learn it that way (But, I could have went to college too long ago).

abecedarius 10y ago

I've never heard about Mozart's fingers bleeding -- do you have a source? I just ran a web search and found a suggestion that he suffered from rickets in infancy, accounting for curved fingers.

sotojuan 10y ago
I've never heard of it either, but it's well known that Mozart both played a ton in his youth and actually worked hard when composing. Most people seem to think he was just sitting there and symphonies came to his head at random.
CuriouslyC 10y ago
It was mentioned in a book I read about talent, which I believe sourced it from an old Mozart biography. Like many stories about legends, it could certainly be apocryphal.

cageface 10y ago

I'm pretty sure talent is overrated. but I doubt in most cases that it exceeds 2-3 percentile point shift I think we'd all like to believe that we can do anything we want if we try hard enough but where is your evidence? This is not a matter for good wishes but scientific proof. It's pretty clear that some physical variations contribute tremendously to ability in sports so it's illogical to accept on faith that no such similar variations exist in the brain.

CuriouslyC 10y ago
I agree that the natural variability in potential is such that an average person isn't going to ever get sufficiently good to medal at an olympics, or even attend one (except perhaps in unpopular sports). You shouldn't let the fact that your natural limit is only the 99th percentile instead of the 99.99th percentile make you feel like a failure though, you're still awesome. One thing I have noticed is that some people learn a skill much faster than others. That being said, the people who learn more slowly seem to reach about the same level eventually, it just takes them longer.
- cageface 10y ago
  I have not found that to be the case in software development. Some people get good very quickly and others are still mediocre after ten years of coding. That doesn't necessarily prove that coding ability is innate, of course, but it at least suggests that effort alone is not enough.
  - CuriouslyC 10y ago
    There's an old saying... Some people have 10 years of experience, others have one year repeated 10 times. If you're running a race, it doesn't matter how much effort you put in if you're going in the wrong direction. In many cases the ones with "talent" are the ones that chose a direction at random that just happened to be roughly correct. The root of the issue is that most people don't approach learning and skill development in anything even remotely close to a methodical, focused manner. They "just do it" and hope that the magical improvement fairy will sprinkle skill-dust on them while they sleep. Maybe they read a book or some articles from time to time, and occasionally think to apply the things they read, but that is about it. Do you think that these same people would take that approach if someone put a gun to their family and said "master XYZ or they die" ?

dredmorbius 10y ago

"The author also talks about her teacher being good. Compared to what? How many music teachers did she have?" pg has a comment on programmers -- you can only tell how good one is by working with them, and there's only so many programmers you can work with. In the areas of teaching, programming, and training, there's the problem that it takes a very high level of proficiency within an area even to assess the abilities of another. Measures of quality are inherently subjective and limited -- assessement, which is to say information acquisition -- is itself highly expensive. This is quite related to Dunning-Kruger, though approaching a different element of the problem. If humans are going to proceed down a track of increased complexity, we're going to have to address how to sensibly make and compare assessments which cannot all be performed by any single entity, but must be reasonably inferred through slightly shared, but very often independent assessments. I've been around numerous fields in which I hear (very frequently novice) initiates claiming the praises of some particular methodology, teacher, or reference. On my own assessment, all too frequently the case seems to be that the endorser is promoting a concept which is at best useful as a first step, occasionally outright harmful, but is not some holy grail. (And yes, very occasionally there are exceptions.) It's a thorny problem.