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> Talent is a useless concept. Varying conceptions of natural ability ('talent' e.g.) tend to mystify excellence, treating it as the inherent possession of a fe

> Talent is a useless concept. Varying conceptions of natural ability ('talent' e.g.) tend to mystify excellence, treating it as the inherent possession of a few; they mask the concrete actions that produce outstanding performance; they avoid the work of empirical analysis and logical explanations (clear definitions, seperable dependent and independent variables, and at least an attempt at establishing the temporal priority of the cause); and finally such conceptions perpetuate the sense of innate psychological differences between top performers and other people. +1

TheOtherHobbes 8y ago
This is nonsense. Sprint athletes are selected on the basis of being physically optimised for sprinting. Basketball athletes are optimised for height. Aspiring ballerinas are excluded from ballet school if they don't have the right physique. Other skills - spatial awareness, verbal acuity, musical sensitivity, basic cognitive speed - are all on a bell curve, with an upper limit that is genetic. Hard work is needed to develop talent, but isn't a substitute for it. Being born with a genome that makes your body short and dumpy means your chances of a career in professional basketball are not high. Likewise, if you have no feel for rhythm you're going to be a terrible drummer. No amount of practice is going to improve that. At best with years of world-class tuition you can aspire to competent mediocrity. If you have some native ability, hard work can help you outperform someone who has plenty but hasn't developed it. But their ceiling of potential is still going to be higher level than yours. Business has more of a problem with talent, because the ability to succeed in business is spread across many more variables. I used to know someone who had unbelievable social and emotional intelligence. He had an astounding ability to read people for character and motivation and predict the moods and future actions of individuals and groups. That's not usually considered a key business skill, but it was absolutely essential to his promotion to board level. The problem in business is that "excellence" is as often a combination of class privilege and bluster, perhaps with some sociopathy, as it is any genuine indication of competence. Or talent.
- conjectures 8y ago
  > Sprint athletes are selected on the basis of being physically optimised for sprinting. Tell that to Usain Bolt. If you feel like maybe Bolt was optimised, reflect on the fact that this was not predicted before the fact, "This range in height appears to exclude people who are very tall or very short in stature." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3899678/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3899678/

TheOtherHobbes 8y ago

This is nonsense. Sprint athletes are selected on the basis of being physically optimised for sprinting. Basketball athletes are optimised for height. Aspiring ballerinas are excluded from ballet school if they don't have the right physique. Other skills - spatial awareness, verbal acuity, musical sensitivity, basic cognitive speed - are all on a bell curve, with an upper limit that is genetic. Hard work is needed to develop talent, but isn't a substitute for it. Being born with a genome that makes your body short and dumpy means your chances of a career in professional basketball are not high. Likewise, if you have no feel for rhythm you're going to be a terrible drummer. No amount of practice is going to improve that. At best with years of world-class tuition you can aspire to competent mediocrity. If you have some native ability, hard work can help you outperform someone who has plenty but hasn't developed it. But their ceiling of potential is still going to be higher level than yours. Business has more of a problem with talent, because the ability to succeed in business is spread across many more variables. I used to know someone who had unbelievable social and emotional intelligence. He had an astounding ability to read people for character and motivation and predict the moods and future actions of individuals and groups. That's not usually considered a key business skill, but it was absolutely essential to his promotion to board level. The problem in business is that "excellence" is as often a combination of class privilege and bluster, perhaps with some sociopathy, as it is any genuine indication of competence. Or talent.

conjectures 8y ago
> Sprint athletes are selected on the basis of being physically optimised for sprinting. Tell that to Usain Bolt. If you feel like maybe Bolt was optimised, reflect on the fact that this was not predicted before the fact, "This range in height appears to exclude people who are very tall or very short in stature." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3899678/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3899678/