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I read The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance, co-edited by K. Anders Ericsson, the psychology professor mentioned in this article. His work

I read The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance, co-edited by K. Anders Ericsson, the psychology professor mentioned in this article. His work inspired Malcolm Gladwell's popular work on deliberate practice. I found Ericsson and co's ideas to be completely counter to their data. A lot of the articles were based on case studies. They studied wrestlers and wrestling coaches, for instance. The wrestling coaches were adamant that their selection process of weeding out less talented athletes and spending their effort grooming the ones who showed lots of promise was one of the keys to success. Somehow the authors completely ignored or glossed over lots of bits like that, strongly emphasized the obvious fact that successful wrestlers practiced a lot, and came to the ridiculous conclusion that practice is the only thing that matters. On a related note, here is a quote from Ericsson that appears in the article: “Differences between expert and less accomplished performers reflect acquired knowledge and skills or physiological adaptations effected by training, with the only confirmed exception being height.” This is so disingenuous it's hard to know where to start. Consider powerlifting champion Andy Bolton. He deadlifted 600 lbs at 18 years old the first time he ever lifted weights. I have been lifting weights for 20 years and have never deadlifted 600 lbs. Bill Kazmaier is another one: he benched 300 lbs the first time he ever tried, and benched 400 a month later. These guys were in a position to win local and regional powerlifting competitions with basically no training at all. And here's Ericsson saying there's no such thing as talent.

hnarn 10y ago
When you say "these guys were in a position to win local and regional powerlifting competitions with basically no training at all", do you have any similar examples for things like chess tournaments? Because if not, you're kind of disproving yourself. Of course genetics can assist you in becoming a good chess player but I have a hard time seeing how a genius who never played chess before just sits down, learns the game and then beats a grand master on the first try through genetics alone.
- gcav 10y ago
  I think there should be at least somewhat of a distinction between athletic events and other activities. Not to dismiss the technical complexity of a deadlift (especially at those poundages), but it's fair to assume most people have picked up an object off the ground. Through general human movement they have more experience/practice with the activity as opposed to chess or the piano
- projektir 10y ago
  There were some studies on chess that seemed to imply that some people reach a certain level after 3k hours and some don't reach it after 30k. I don't have the link on hand right now but I could find it tomorrow...
  - barry-cotter 10y ago
    Is this it? http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289616301593?via%3Dihub http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289616... Highlights • Gf, Gc, Gsm, and Gs all correlated positively and significantly with chess skill. • The relationship between Gf and chess skill was moderated by age and skill level. • Chess skill correlated positively with numerical, visuospatial, and verbal ability. Abstract Why are some people more skilled in complex domains than other people? Here, we conducted a meta-analysis to evaluate the relationship between cognitive ability and skill in chess. Chess skill correlated positively and significantly with fluid reasoning (Gf) ( = 0.24), comprehension-knowledge (Gc) ( = 0.22), short-term memory (Gsm) ( = 0.25), and processing speed (Gs) ( = 0.24); the meta-analytic average of the correlations was ( = 0.24). Moreover, the correlation between Gf and chess skill was moderated by age ( = 0.32 for youth samples vs. = 0.11 for adult samples), and skill level ( = 0.32 for unranked samples vs. = 0.14 for ranked samples). Interestingly, chess skill correlated more strongly with numerical ability ( = 0.35) than with verbal ability ( = 0.19) or visuospatial ability ( = 0.13). The results suggest that cognitive ability contributes meaningfully to individual differences in chess skill, particularly in young chess players and/or at lower levels of skill.
    - projektir 10y ago
      The names look familiar. Too bad the .pdf is not accessible.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  There are numerous cases in mathematics. I can't put names on incidents but: * The schoolboy who realised the algorithm for adding the integers 1 - 100. * The UC Berkeley Graduate student who solved 2-3 "extra credit" final exam questions ... only to discover they were previously unsolved proofs. Chess isn't an area I'm closely familiar with, but there absolutely have been prodigies there as well. Many in music.
  - mikebenfield 10y ago
    FYI, the schoolboy is CF Gauss, early 19th century German mathematician who did... tons of stuff. (That's why so much in mathematics and physics is called "Gauss" or "Gaussian.") The graduate student was George Dantzig. While I think Dantzig is certainly an example of extraordinary natural talent, if your parent comment was looking for examples of talent manifesting itself before any training at all, I don't think this qualifies. As a grad student in math, Dantzig had already spent years studying mathematics by this point.
    - dredmorbius 10y ago
      Thanks, I suspected someone would provide the names. On Dantzig: there's training, and there's the capability to come on a problem cold, treat it as an ordinary exam question, and find a solution within a day or so, to something which had dogged the rest of the maths world for years or decades. I'm not denying that Dantzig had had formal training by this point. But he'd also accomplished in small time what others hadn't in big.
    - hasenj 10y ago
      Yet he exceeded hit professor and many experts in the field while he was still a student.
  - ambicapter 10y ago
    > * The schoolboy who realised the algorithm for adding the integers 1 - 100. Gauss > * The UC Berkeley Graduate student who solved 2-3 "extra credit" final exam questions ... only to discover they were previously unsolved proofs. George Bernard Dantzig
- mikebenfield 10y ago
  "Because if not, you're kind of disproving yourself. Of course genetics can assist you in becoming a good chess player..." I don't understand how I'm disproving myself. I was trying to disprove Ericsson's claim that genetics play basically no role in successful performance, and I think my examples adequately illustrate that in at least some cases it actually does play a very large role. The fact that no one is a great chess player with no practice is irrelevant. As you acknowledge that genetics can help with chess, it seems you actually agree with my point over Ericsson's.

hnarn 10y ago

When you say "these guys were in a position to win local and regional powerlifting competitions with basically no training at all", do you have any similar examples for things like chess tournaments? Because if not, you're kind of disproving yourself. Of course genetics can assist you in becoming a good chess player but I have a hard time seeing how a genius who never played chess before just sits down, learns the game and then beats a grand master on the first try through genetics alone.

gcav 10y ago
I think there should be at least somewhat of a distinction between athletic events and other activities. Not to dismiss the technical complexity of a deadlift (especially at those poundages), but it's fair to assume most people have picked up an object off the ground. Through general human movement they have more experience/practice with the activity as opposed to chess or the piano
projektir 10y ago
There were some studies on chess that seemed to imply that some people reach a certain level after 3k hours and some don't reach it after 30k. I don't have the link on hand right now but I could find it tomorrow...
- barry-cotter 10y ago
  Is this it? http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289616301593?via%3Dihub http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289616... Highlights • Gf, Gc, Gsm, and Gs all correlated positively and significantly with chess skill. • The relationship between Gf and chess skill was moderated by age and skill level. • Chess skill correlated positively with numerical, visuospatial, and verbal ability. Abstract Why are some people more skilled in complex domains than other people? Here, we conducted a meta-analysis to evaluate the relationship between cognitive ability and skill in chess. Chess skill correlated positively and significantly with fluid reasoning (Gf) ( = 0.24), comprehension-knowledge (Gc) ( = 0.22), short-term memory (Gsm) ( = 0.25), and processing speed (Gs) ( = 0.24); the meta-analytic average of the correlations was ( = 0.24). Moreover, the correlation between Gf and chess skill was moderated by age ( = 0.32 for youth samples vs. = 0.11 for adult samples), and skill level ( = 0.32 for unranked samples vs. = 0.14 for ranked samples). Interestingly, chess skill correlated more strongly with numerical ability ( = 0.35) than with verbal ability ( = 0.19) or visuospatial ability ( = 0.13). The results suggest that cognitive ability contributes meaningfully to individual differences in chess skill, particularly in young chess players and/or at lower levels of skill.
  - projektir 10y ago
    The names look familiar. Too bad the .pdf is not accessible.
dredmorbius 10y ago
There are numerous cases in mathematics. I can't put names on incidents but: * The schoolboy who realised the algorithm for adding the integers 1 - 100. * The UC Berkeley Graduate student who solved 2-3 "extra credit" final exam questions ... only to discover they were previously unsolved proofs. Chess isn't an area I'm closely familiar with, but there absolutely have been prodigies there as well. Many in music.
- mikebenfield 10y ago
  FYI, the schoolboy is CF Gauss, early 19th century German mathematician who did... tons of stuff. (That's why so much in mathematics and physics is called "Gauss" or "Gaussian.") The graduate student was George Dantzig. While I think Dantzig is certainly an example of extraordinary natural talent, if your parent comment was looking for examples of talent manifesting itself before any training at all, I don't think this qualifies. As a grad student in math, Dantzig had already spent years studying mathematics by this point.
  - dredmorbius 10y ago
    Thanks, I suspected someone would provide the names. On Dantzig: there's training, and there's the capability to come on a problem cold, treat it as an ordinary exam question, and find a solution within a day or so, to something which had dogged the rest of the maths world for years or decades. I'm not denying that Dantzig had had formal training by this point. But he'd also accomplished in small time what others hadn't in big.
  - hasenj 10y ago
    Yet he exceeded hit professor and many experts in the field while he was still a student.
- ambicapter 10y ago
  > * The schoolboy who realised the algorithm for adding the integers 1 - 100. Gauss > * The UC Berkeley Graduate student who solved 2-3 "extra credit" final exam questions ... only to discover they were previously unsolved proofs. George Bernard Dantzig
mikebenfield 10y ago
"Because if not, you're kind of disproving yourself. Of course genetics can assist you in becoming a good chess player..." I don't understand how I'm disproving myself. I was trying to disprove Ericsson's claim that genetics play basically no role in successful performance, and I think my examples adequately illustrate that in at least some cases it actually does play a very large role. The fact that no one is a great chess player with no practice is irrelevant. As you acknowledge that genetics can help with chess, it seems you actually agree with my point over Ericsson's.