4 ms·

After reading this article I'm not sure if I read or learned anything new. The article tries to challenge the 10000 hours rule, but fails to provide details or

by kerng 7y ago

After reading this article I'm not sure if I read or learned anything new. The article tries to challenge the 10000 hours rule, but fails to provide details or numbers that suggest what other factors would be more important. It briefly mentions things like "talent", but after reading Growth Mindset I'm convinced that talent alone just provides a starting advantage. The book gives plenty of examples of that. The article should highlight more what kind of practice they refer to and what they think is the main contributing factor. I think to become an expert in something like playing a musical instrument focused practice and repetition is necessary, so having the right coach is extremely important. However, the most crucial piece might actually be the passion or willingness to learn in my opinion.

Blackstone4 7y ago
I feel like I hold two conflicting beliefs...growth mindset (the brain is a muscle which can be exercised) and inherit talent... My belief in growth mindset has help me improve my communication skills both oral and written. However I also recognise that I have certain limitations based on natural talent. For instance, I’m likely to never to be as good at word games (i.e. scrabble) as many friends and family members. This is at odds with my growth mindset to a certain extent. Maybe any skill can be improved upon but natural talent gives us an inherit advantage over the rest of the field.
- apersona 7y ago
  The model I have right now is that talent is learning rate, so I don't see how the beliefs conflict with each other. Some people pick things up faster than others, but if you put more effort you can still catch up. It also explains why even talented people still need to practice/learn/etc. to be at the top of their fields.
  - rmetzler 7y ago
    Yes, and the article even fails to mention that it might be more important how someone practices than how much the person practices.
  - TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
    Talent is the amount of work you don't have to do to better than the average person. It also sets a ceiling. Beyond a certain level, no amount of work will make you any better, because you fundamentally don't have the cognitive skill or physical ability to improve further. I've spent a fair amount of time with musicians, and talent can be very obvious. You can have a room full of people who have spent years practicing and been through a degree program. They're all outstanding compared to most of the population. But sometimes one person in that room will still stand out, because their playing will be insightful, compelling, and musical in a way the others can't match. It's an instant thing - it only takes a few bars to hear it. They won't necessarily have done the most work, or put the most hours in. But they will, in some absolutely fundamental way, "get it" - usually from birth. The hours and the work refine that ability and make it more obvious. But they can't create it.
  - kerng 7y ago
    A friend of mine is a professional violinist. People say she is really talented and skilled. The interesting thing is that she gets very upset when people say: you are so talented. The reason she explained to me once is that people see her perform and play and think that's just how easy it is for her. She said to me once: "Noone sees the thousands of hours I practiced by myself in a dark rehearsal room without even a window at school". That was quite enlightening to me. So, if someone says it's just "talent", its quite offensive to her. It's hard and dedicated work.
    - AstralStorm 7y ago
      But it is true. Take any random person and get them to train for this many hours, they won't even come close. Both are necessary. She gets upset because she bought into the culture that tells us we control everything about ourselves. Which is somewhat of a lie in many ways.
      - kerng 7y ago
        No, she gets upset because people ignore the fact that she had to work to become that good. Also, any random person can learn to play violin sufficient enough to play in an orchestra (besides a physical or mental disability maybe). Maybe not professionally because that needs addition passion and dedication and there is a lot of competition. But playing good enough for a community orchestra that requires audition, pretty much anyone can achieve.
- yomly 7y ago
  If you've ever thought about or done some lifting, you might be familiar with noob gains If you imagine every skill is a dimension, you'll be able to traverse to "proficient/adept" quite easily with some dedicated practice I find the more interesting reflection is how much people overestimate their abilities in the more day to day/mundane skills that everyone has some proficiency in - think "conversation" or separately "running". Both things most humans can do but also most people don't get too much further past novice in them despite being things that we have been doing all our lives. Turns out that without dedicated practice and good feedback loops, it's possible to stay a novice at something your entire life. So for me at least, talent is about your ability to improve at something with little to no direction. When I think of the greatest salespeople I know, they have been honing the skill all life, but they also never had anyone teach them what they needed to know or what was important to learn. And yet when I analyze their lives and realize that from young they were constructing feedback loops for things like "how to be funny" or "how to wow a crowd" or "how to negotiate" with virtually zero guidance, I can only infer that this is what genius looks like...
- Daub 7y ago
  Completely agreed. Any realistic model of creativity has to accommodate both nature and nurture. Unfortunately, in the humanities, the idea that anything is natural is an unpopular position. In defence of nurture, 28% of Nobel Prize winning physicists come from families where the father was an academic professional. From the same book (The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity) we learn that this number falls to 6% for Nobel Prize winning writers. However, a whopping 30% of these writers lost at least one parent through death, abandonment or desertion. In contrast, physicists lead fairly normal lives.
xkgt 7y ago
// The article tries to challenge the 10000 hours rule, but fails to provide details or numbers that suggest what other factors would be more important. As per the article, one of the author Macnamara claims that a complex combination of environmental factors, genetic factors and their interactions explains the performance differences across people. I couldn't access the original paper, however it would be interesting to see how they establish this claim. Also, based on the guardian article, the refutation seems to be targeted at a strawman since the original 1993 paper never claimed that mere repetition was not sufficient. "Nonetheless, Bryan and Harter (1897, 1899) had clearly shown that with mere repetition, improvement of performance was often arrested at less than maximal levels, and further improvement required effortful reorganization of the skill"[1] Even if the authors had considered only deliberate practice, it would be quite difficult to measure the nature of a practice. 1. http://projects.ict.usc.edu/itw/gel/EricssonDeliberatePracticePR93.pdf http://projects.ict.usc.edu/itw/gel/EricssonDeliberatePracti...
- AstralStorm 7y ago
  Said strawman has become a relatively widely believed myth, due to misrepresentation by a person mentioned in the article. The original paper did not claim it indeed. Read more carefully next time.
pietrovismara 7y ago
I think for musicians especially the effects of talent aren't possible to ignore. I've seen musicians study/play for 20 years and be good but not special, while others in the same time managed to build an international career. It's something you can clearly hear and see when they play too, not just a matter of how famous they are. It might be sad for someone but I'm convinced that not everyone has the right talent to be a musician or to play a certain instrument. Some people are geniuses, others are mediocre at best. Everyone has his strengths and talents and it's only normal that we excel at very different things.
Kaveren 7y ago
A new study of 5,000 students shows no material impact from growth mindset. [0] It's just feel good science. [0] https://www.tes.com/news/exclusive-growth-mindset-lessons-had-no-impact https://www.tes.com/news/exclusive-growth-mindset-lessons-ha...

by kerng 7y ago

Blackstone4 7y ago

I feel like I hold two conflicting beliefs...growth mindset (the brain is a muscle which can be exercised) and inherit talent... My belief in growth mindset has help me improve my communication skills both oral and written. However I also recognise that I have certain limitations based on natural talent. For instance, I’m likely to never to be as good at word games (i.e. scrabble) as many friends and family members. This is at odds with my growth mindset to a certain extent. Maybe any skill can be improved upon but natural talent gives us an inherit advantage over the rest of the field.

apersona 7y ago
The model I have right now is that talent is learning rate, so I don't see how the beliefs conflict with each other. Some people pick things up faster than others, but if you put more effort you can still catch up. It also explains why even talented people still need to practice/learn/etc. to be at the top of their fields.
- rmetzler 7y ago
  Yes, and the article even fails to mention that it might be more important how someone practices than how much the person practices.
- TheOtherHobbes 7y ago
  Talent is the amount of work you don't have to do to better than the average person. It also sets a ceiling. Beyond a certain level, no amount of work will make you any better, because you fundamentally don't have the cognitive skill or physical ability to improve further. I've spent a fair amount of time with musicians, and talent can be very obvious. You can have a room full of people who have spent years practicing and been through a degree program. They're all outstanding compared to most of the population. But sometimes one person in that room will still stand out, because their playing will be insightful, compelling, and musical in a way the others can't match. It's an instant thing - it only takes a few bars to hear it. They won't necessarily have done the most work, or put the most hours in. But they will, in some absolutely fundamental way, "get it" - usually from birth. The hours and the work refine that ability and make it more obvious. But they can't create it.
- kerng 7y ago
  A friend of mine is a professional violinist. People say she is really talented and skilled. The interesting thing is that she gets very upset when people say: you are so talented. The reason she explained to me once is that people see her perform and play and think that's just how easy it is for her. She said to me once: "Noone sees the thousands of hours I practiced by myself in a dark rehearsal room without even a window at school". That was quite enlightening to me. So, if someone says it's just "talent", its quite offensive to her. It's hard and dedicated work.
  - AstralStorm 7y ago
    But it is true. Take any random person and get them to train for this many hours, they won't even come close. Both are necessary. She gets upset because she bought into the culture that tells us we control everything about ourselves. Which is somewhat of a lie in many ways.
    - kerng 7y ago
      No, she gets upset because people ignore the fact that she had to work to become that good. Also, any random person can learn to play violin sufficient enough to play in an orchestra (besides a physical or mental disability maybe). Maybe not professionally because that needs addition passion and dedication and there is a lot of competition. But playing good enough for a community orchestra that requires audition, pretty much anyone can achieve.
yomly 7y ago
If you've ever thought about or done some lifting, you might be familiar with noob gains If you imagine every skill is a dimension, you'll be able to traverse to "proficient/adept" quite easily with some dedicated practice I find the more interesting reflection is how much people overestimate their abilities in the more day to day/mundane skills that everyone has some proficiency in - think "conversation" or separately "running". Both things most humans can do but also most people don't get too much further past novice in them despite being things that we have been doing all our lives. Turns out that without dedicated practice and good feedback loops, it's possible to stay a novice at something your entire life. So for me at least, talent is about your ability to improve at something with little to no direction. When I think of the greatest salespeople I know, they have been honing the skill all life, but they also never had anyone teach them what they needed to know or what was important to learn. And yet when I analyze their lives and realize that from young they were constructing feedback loops for things like "how to be funny" or "how to wow a crowd" or "how to negotiate" with virtually zero guidance, I can only infer that this is what genius looks like...
Daub 7y ago
Completely agreed. Any realistic model of creativity has to accommodate both nature and nurture. Unfortunately, in the humanities, the idea that anything is natural is an unpopular position. In defence of nurture, 28% of Nobel Prize winning physicists come from families where the father was an academic professional. From the same book (The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity) we learn that this number falls to 6% for Nobel Prize winning writers. However, a whopping 30% of these writers lost at least one parent through death, abandonment or desertion. In contrast, physicists lead fairly normal lives.

xkgt 7y ago

// The article tries to challenge the 10000 hours rule, but fails to provide details or numbers that suggest what other factors would be more important. As per the article, one of the author Macnamara claims that a complex combination of environmental factors, genetic factors and their interactions explains the performance differences across people. I couldn't access the original paper, however it would be interesting to see how they establish this claim. Also, based on the guardian article, the refutation seems to be targeted at a strawman since the original 1993 paper never claimed that mere repetition was not sufficient. "Nonetheless, Bryan and Harter (1897, 1899) had clearly shown that with mere repetition, improvement of performance was often arrested at less than maximal levels, and further improvement required effortful reorganization of the skill"[1] Even if the authors had considered only deliberate practice, it would be quite difficult to measure the nature of a practice. 1. http://projects.ict.usc.edu/itw/gel/EricssonDeliberatePracticePR93.pdf http://projects.ict.usc.edu/itw/gel/EricssonDeliberatePracti...

AstralStorm 7y ago
Said strawman has become a relatively widely believed myth, due to misrepresentation by a person mentioned in the article. The original paper did not claim it indeed. Read more carefully next time.

pietrovismara 7y ago

I think for musicians especially the effects of talent aren't possible to ignore. I've seen musicians study/play for 20 years and be good but not special, while others in the same time managed to build an international career. It's something you can clearly hear and see when they play too, not just a matter of how famous they are. It might be sad for someone but I'm convinced that not everyone has the right talent to be a musician or to play a certain instrument. Some people are geniuses, others are mediocre at best. Everyone has his strengths and talents and it's only normal that we excel at very different things.

Kaveren 7y ago

A new study of 5,000 students shows no material impact from growth mindset. [0] It's just feel good science. [0] https://www.tes.com/news/exclusive-growth-mindset-lessons-had-no-impact https://www.tes.com/news/exclusive-growth-mindset-lessons-ha...