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> I agree with the sentiment of this. I think our obsession with innate mathematical skill and genius is so detrimental to the growth mindset that you need

by junto 2y ago

> I agree with the sentiment of this. I think our obsession with innate ~~mathematical~~ skill and genius is so detrimental to the growth mindset that you need to have in order to learn things. I strongly believe that the average human being can be exceptional in any niche topic given enough time, dedication and focus. The author of the book has picked out mathematics because that was what he was interested in. The reality is that this rule applies to everything. The belief that some people have an innate skill that they are born with is deeply unhelpful. Whilst some people (mostly spectrum) do seem have an innate talent, I would argue that it is more an inbuilt ability to hyper focus on a topic, whether that topic be mathematics, Star Trek, dinosaurs or legacy console games from the 1980’s. I think we do our children a disservice by convincing them that some of their peers are just “born with it”, because it discourages them from continuing to try. What we should be teaching children is HOW to learn. At the moment it’s a by-product of learning about some topic. If we look at the old adage “feed a man a fish”, the same is true of learning. “Teach someone mathematics and they will learn mathematics. Teach someone to learn and they will learn anything”.

ponderings 2y ago
I've had some success converting people by telling them others had convinced them they were stupid. They usually have one or two things they are actually good at, like a domain they flee to. I simply point out how everything else is exactly like [say] playing the guitar. Eventually you will be good enough to sing at the same time. Clearly you already are a genius. I cant even remember the most basic cords or lyrics because I've never bothered with it. I met the guitar guy a few years later outside his house. He always had just one guitar but now owned something like 20, something like a hundred books about music. Quite the composer. It looked and sounded highly sophisticated. The dumb guy didn't exist anymore.
- shrubhub 2y ago
  But also, some people are stupid, right?
  - ajuc 2y ago
    The inborn part is how quickly you get results (good or bad). Stupidity is the results. If we spent 50% of time thinking productively - inborn thinking speed would matter. But in my estimate even 5% is generous. So it matters far more what kind of feedback you have to filter out the wrong results, and how much time you spend thinking - than how quickly you can do it. Also practice helps with speed.
  - yawpitch 2y ago
    Intellect is like a gas, it will expand to fill its container. The container, in humans, is epigenetic and social — genetics only determines how hot or cold your gas is, ie how fast and how fluidly it expands, but you’re taught your limits — it’s best to see stupid as not how limited you are relative to other but what limits you have now and may abandon in the future. That said, some people received a smaller starting container, and might need some help cracking it. That’s the work of those who think they’ve found a bigger one.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
shrubhub 2y ago
So you're saying success at maths isn't an inbuilt ability. Instead, it depends on an (inbuilt) ability to hyper focus... Which you are just born with?
- elbear 2y ago
  Not even that. It depends on the learned ability to stop pushing yourself when your focus is wavering. That's how you develop aversion towards the topic. Let your natural curiosity draw you to particular topics (that's why you might have a winding road through the subject).
  - air7 2y ago
    parent comment was a bit tounge-in-cheek but I'll continue the sentiment: You're saying that the curiosity is "natural" hence one is either born with it or not. I think that there is no way around the fact that it will be hard and uncomfortable to mimic the progress of someone that has an innate inclination towards a subject (be it talent or focus or curiosity) artificially.
    - card_zero 2y ago
      Hey, that doesn't have to be what "natural curiosity" means. Besides which it makes no sense to say people are born with complex interests. I mean, OK, your genes might incline you a certain way, but that's not the same thing. Being interested in a subject is massively helpful to learning it. But interest arises circumstantially, it's an emotion. The grim reality that it would be really useful to you to learn a certain subject does not necessarily make you interested in the subject, unfortunately. (Perhaps "financially interested", but that's something else.)
      - ericd 2y ago
        I think there is some natural inclination towards abstract thinking versus more grounded in reality, just judging based on kids I know. Some of them really enjoy playing with ideas in their heads, some enjoy playing with things they can touch more. It seems likely that those different attractions would express themselves in how much they practice different things as time goes on.
diffeomorphism 2y ago
Caveat here is that "talent" and "dedication" is linked to speed at least in the beginning. For instance, any student can learn calculus given enough time and advice even starting from scratch. However, the syllabus wants all this to happen in one semester. This gives you vicious and virtuous cycles: Students' learning speed increases with time and past success. So "talented" students learn quickly and have extra time to further explore and improve, leading to further success. Students who struggle with the time constraint are forced to take shortcuts like memorizing "magic formulas" without having time to really understand. Trying to close that gap is very hard work.
- drbig 2y ago
  Thank you for the insight that academic (in a very broad sense) bulk-fixed-time approach does in fact produce both of the cycles, and the gap indeed only widens with time (speaking from personal experience, especially from my life as an undergrad student). Reminds me of my personal peeve that "studying" should not be "being taught", studying is pursuit of understanding, "being taught" is what happens in primary school (and I'm aware I'm simplifying here).
  - blackbear_ 2y ago
    I would say that you could generalize this even further outside of education. A few early successes in life can greatly accelerate one's trajectory, while early failures could set one many years back. And this happens independently of whether those events are due to skill or luck.
- jvanderbot 2y ago
  Indeed, speed is often read as "smarts" whereas I would maintain it's much more often "preparation". We can't on one hand believe in the plasticity and retrainability of the mind, while simultaneously believing that speed is something only a few are born with. On the nature/nurture scale, I think it's 20/80 or so - but prodigies and geniuses have an interest that keeps them thinking and learning 10x or 100x more than other kids, and a little bump that lets them get started easier and therefore much earlier. This sets them up for fantastic success very quickly. [1] shows a great example of this. I'm fond of saying "You can do anything you want, but wanting is the hard part", because to truly be a grandmaster, genius-level mathematician, olympic athlete, etc, requires a dedication and amount of preparation that almost nobody can manage. Starting late, with emotional baggage, kids, and having to spend 5 years relearning how to learn? Forget it. 1. https://danielkarim.com/how-to-become-a-genius-the-polgar-experiment/ https://danielkarim.com/how-to-become-a-genius-the-polgar-ex...
graemep 2y ago
> The author of the book has picked out mathematics because that was what he was interested in. The reality is that this rule applies to everything. My first thought when the article got to the dialog between logic and intuition bit was that the same is true for school level physics.
LoganDark 2y ago
> Whilst some people (mostly spectrum) do seem have an innate talent I think the only thing in autism that I'd call an innate talent is detail-oriented thinking by default. It'd be the same type of "innate talent" as, say, synesthesia, or schizophrenia: a side effect of experiencing the world differently.
- yawpitch 2y ago
  > a side effect of experiencing the world differently A side effect for which there is a substantial, lifelong, and most importantly wide cost, even if it occasionally confers usually small, usually fleeting, and most importantly narrow advantage.
  - sethammons 2y ago
    At such cost with such narrow advantage, why has it persisted so pervasively? I would counter that the advantage is wider and the cost narrower than your current value system is allowing you to accept.
    - LoganDark 2y ago
      Natural selection doesn't care about cost or advantage, only reproduction.
      - sethammons 2y ago
        It is the sum of costs and advantages that lead to reproductive success. The trait is still here and still prevalent meaning people are still getting laid and starting families and presumably leading fulfilling lives. I'm not sure what you are trying to say.
        LoganDark 2y ago
        > I'm not sure what you are trying to say. I'm saying, if it doesn't ruin lives to the point of preventing reproduction, then it stays in the gene pool. Basically, I'm saying this: > The trait is still here and still prevalent meaning people are still getting laid and starting families and presumably leading fulfilling lives.
Malidir 2y ago
>The belief that some people have an innate skill that they are born with is deeply unhelpful. Whilst some people (mostly spectrum) do seem have an innate talent, I would argue that it is more an inbuilt ability to hyper focus on a topic, whether that topic be mathematics, Star Trek, dinosaurs or legacy console games from the 1980’s. Nonsense! The brain you are born with materially dictates the ceiling of your talent. A person with average ability can with dedication and focus over many years become reasonably good, but a genius can do the same in 1 year and at a young age. We have an education system which gives an A Grade if you pass the course, but 1 person may put on 5 hours a week and the other works day and night.
- PittleyDunkin 2y ago
  What makes you think that "genius" is nature and not nurture? I'd love to see the evidence for this; i'm deeply skeptical. Edit: I don't mean to argue that there aren't genetics involved in determining aptitude on certain tasks, of course, but the assumption that genius is born and never made feels like a very shallow understanding of the capacity of man.
  - Malidir 2y ago
    > I'd love to see the evidence for this; i'm deeply skeptical. Cool, come and have a coffee with me :) I have older and younger siblings and was the one randomly blessed. Whereas most recognised talents are associated with hard work and so there is then this visible link, I am a good example as I did the bare minimum throughout education (and beyond...). The way my brain processes and selectively discards/stores the information it receives is very different to majority of the population. I have no control over it. I take zero credit for any of my achievments - I regularly meet intelligent people near to retirement who have been to a tier 1 university, may have PHDs, worked 60 hours a week since they were born, been on course and what not and cannot reach the levels I can. My nurturing was no different to siblings/peers (and was terrible!) Note: I have my weaknesses too, but as a whole, I am exceptional. Not through effort!! Completely random - neither of my parents are intelligent and nothing up the ancestary tree as far as I know.
dennis_jeeves2 2y ago
>I strongly believe that the average human being can be exceptional in any niche topic given enough time, dedication and focus. And this also gives the proponent (you in this case) an excuse to blame a person for not focusing hard enough or not being dedicated enough if they don't grasp the basics, let alone excel.
InDubioProRubio 2y ago
The boostrap skill is the ability to obsess over something. To focus and self-reward on anything is a heaven sent. Good thing we do not medicate that if we are unable to get that energy on the road, that base skill.
sdeframond 2y ago
> I strongly believe that the average human being can be exceptional in any niche topic given enough time, dedication and focus. I respectfully, but strongly, disagree. There's a reason most NBA players are over 2 meters tall, and one does not become taller with time, dedication nor focus. It might be different for intellectual skills but I am not that sure. Almost anyone can become decent at almost anything though. Which is good already!
- wtetzner 2y ago
  > I respectfully, but strongly, disagree. There's a reason most NBA players are over 2 meters tall, and one does not become taller with time, dedication nor focus. Being tall isn't a skill. I suspect you could be skillful enough at basketball to overcome the hight disadvantage. However, I think most people who might become that skillful see the high disadvantage (plus the general difficulty of becoming a pro basketball player) and take a different path through life. It's also possible that the amount of time that would be needed to grow your skill past the height disadvantage is too long, so it's not feasible to do it to gain a position in the NBA.
  - rafaelero 2y ago
    Intelligence is also not a skill, but the thing that makes you skillful in all cognitive tasks. Just like what height does to basketball players.
    - nemo 2y ago
      >Intelligence is also not skill, but the thing that makes you skillful in all cognitive tasks. Careful with that "all", even the most highly intelligent humans still have peaks and deficits in different domains.
      - samatman 2y ago
        It's a matter of the definition. The general factor of intelligence, which is measured through various somewhat lossy proxies like IQ tests, is exactly the degree to which someone exceeds expectation on all cognitive tasks (or vice versa). The interesting finding is that this universal correlation is strong, real, and durable. Of course people in general have cognitive domains where they function better or worse than their g factor indicates, and that's before we get into the fact that intellectual task performance is strongly predicated on knowledge and practice, which is difficult to control for outside of tests designed (successfully, I must add) to do so.
hilbert42 2y ago
"What we should be teaching children is HOW to learn." Absolutely correct. And that begins with getting their interest, thus their attention; and that's a whole subject in and of itself.
Gimpei 2y ago
I don’t know if I agree. Grad school was profoundly humbling to me because it really showed me that there are a LOT of people out there that are just much much better than me at math. There are different levels of innate talent.
red75prime 2y ago
> The belief that some people have an innate skill that they are born with is deeply unhelpful. In practice your views result in stinting access of non-existent (in your opinion) talented children to a faster education track. They don't exist therefore they don't need different treatment (finer points get lost when the idea disseminates). Quite a hot theme in American education two (or so) years ago.
scubbo 2y ago
> an inbuilt ability to hyper focus on a topic, whether that topic be mathematics, Star Trek, dinosaurs or legacy console games from the 1980’s. I see you're familiar with Ryan North.
myworkinisgood 2y ago
Math is a stepping stone to critical thinking skills. And while one can probably learn those skills in any way, math forces you to learn those skills by learning the method of writing proofs. No other field forces you to push your critical thinking skills to the limit that math does.

> I agree with the sentiment of this. I think our obsession with innate ~~mathematical~~ skill and genius is so detrimental to the growth mindset that you need

by junto 2y ago

ponderings 2y ago

I've had some success converting people by telling them others had convinced them they were stupid. They usually have one or two things they are actually good at, like a domain they flee to. I simply point out how everything else is exactly like [say] playing the guitar. Eventually you will be good enough to sing at the same time. Clearly you already are a genius. I cant even remember the most basic cords or lyrics because I've never bothered with it. I met the guitar guy a few years later outside his house. He always had just one guitar but now owned something like 20, something like a hundred books about music. Quite the composer. It looked and sounded highly sophisticated. The dumb guy didn't exist anymore.

shrubhub 2y ago
But also, some people are stupid, right?
- ajuc 2y ago
  The inborn part is how quickly you get results (good or bad). Stupidity is the results. If we spent 50% of time thinking productively - inborn thinking speed would matter. But in my estimate even 5% is generous. So it matters far more what kind of feedback you have to filter out the wrong results, and how much time you spend thinking - than how quickly you can do it. Also practice helps with speed.
- yawpitch 2y ago
  Intellect is like a gas, it will expand to fill its container. The container, in humans, is epigenetic and social — genetics only determines how hot or cold your gas is, ie how fast and how fluidly it expands, but you’re taught your limits — it’s best to see stupid as not how limited you are relative to other but what limits you have now and may abandon in the future. That said, some people received a smaller starting container, and might need some help cracking it. That’s the work of those who think they’ve found a bigger one.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

shrubhub 2y ago

So you're saying success at maths isn't an inbuilt ability. Instead, it depends on an (inbuilt) ability to hyper focus... Which you are just born with?

elbear 2y ago
Not even that. It depends on the learned ability to stop pushing yourself when your focus is wavering. That's how you develop aversion towards the topic. Let your natural curiosity draw you to particular topics (that's why you might have a winding road through the subject).
- air7 2y ago
  parent comment was a bit tounge-in-cheek but I'll continue the sentiment: You're saying that the curiosity is "natural" hence one is either born with it or not. I think that there is no way around the fact that it will be hard and uncomfortable to mimic the progress of someone that has an innate inclination towards a subject (be it talent or focus or curiosity) artificially.
  - card_zero 2y ago
    Hey, that doesn't have to be what "natural curiosity" means. Besides which it makes no sense to say people are born with complex interests. I mean, OK, your genes might incline you a certain way, but that's not the same thing. Being interested in a subject is massively helpful to learning it. But interest arises circumstantially, it's an emotion. The grim reality that it would be really useful to you to learn a certain subject does not necessarily make you interested in the subject, unfortunately. (Perhaps "financially interested", but that's something else.)
    - ericd 2y ago
      I think there is some natural inclination towards abstract thinking versus more grounded in reality, just judging based on kids I know. Some of them really enjoy playing with ideas in their heads, some enjoy playing with things they can touch more. It seems likely that those different attractions would express themselves in how much they practice different things as time goes on.

diffeomorphism 2y ago

Caveat here is that "talent" and "dedication" is linked to speed at least in the beginning. For instance, any student can learn calculus given enough time and advice even starting from scratch. However, the syllabus wants all this to happen in one semester. This gives you vicious and virtuous cycles: Students' learning speed increases with time and past success. So "talented" students learn quickly and have extra time to further explore and improve, leading to further success. Students who struggle with the time constraint are forced to take shortcuts like memorizing "magic formulas" without having time to really understand. Trying to close that gap is very hard work.

drbig 2y ago
Thank you for the insight that academic (in a very broad sense) bulk-fixed-time approach does in fact produce both of the cycles, and the gap indeed only widens with time (speaking from personal experience, especially from my life as an undergrad student). Reminds me of my personal peeve that "studying" should not be "being taught", studying is pursuit of understanding, "being taught" is what happens in primary school (and I'm aware I'm simplifying here).
- blackbear_ 2y ago
  I would say that you could generalize this even further outside of education. A few early successes in life can greatly accelerate one's trajectory, while early failures could set one many years back. And this happens independently of whether those events are due to skill or luck.
jvanderbot 2y ago
Indeed, speed is often read as "smarts" whereas I would maintain it's much more often "preparation". We can't on one hand believe in the plasticity and retrainability of the mind, while simultaneously believing that speed is something only a few are born with. On the nature/nurture scale, I think it's 20/80 or so - but prodigies and geniuses have an interest that keeps them thinking and learning 10x or 100x more than other kids, and a little bump that lets them get started easier and therefore much earlier. This sets them up for fantastic success very quickly. [1] shows a great example of this. I'm fond of saying "You can do anything you want, but wanting is the hard part", because to truly be a grandmaster, genius-level mathematician, olympic athlete, etc, requires a dedication and amount of preparation that almost nobody can manage. Starting late, with emotional baggage, kids, and having to spend 5 years relearning how to learn? Forget it. 1. https://danielkarim.com/how-to-become-a-genius-the-polgar-experiment/ https://danielkarim.com/how-to-become-a-genius-the-polgar-ex...

graemep 2y ago

> The author of the book has picked out mathematics because that was what he was interested in. The reality is that this rule applies to everything. My first thought when the article got to the dialog between logic and intuition bit was that the same is true for school level physics.

LoganDark 2y ago

> Whilst some people (mostly spectrum) do seem have an innate talent I think the only thing in autism that I'd call an innate talent is detail-oriented thinking by default. It'd be the same type of "innate talent" as, say, synesthesia, or schizophrenia: a side effect of experiencing the world differently.

yawpitch 2y ago
> a side effect of experiencing the world differently A side effect for which there is a substantial, lifelong, and most importantly wide cost, even if it occasionally confers usually small, usually fleeting, and most importantly narrow advantage.
- sethammons 2y ago
  At such cost with such narrow advantage, why has it persisted so pervasively? I would counter that the advantage is wider and the cost narrower than your current value system is allowing you to accept.
  - LoganDark 2y ago
    Natural selection doesn't care about cost or advantage, only reproduction.
    - sethammons 2y ago
      It is the sum of costs and advantages that lead to reproductive success. The trait is still here and still prevalent meaning people are still getting laid and starting families and presumably leading fulfilling lives. I'm not sure what you are trying to say.
      - LoganDark 2y ago
        > I'm not sure what you are trying to say. I'm saying, if it doesn't ruin lives to the point of preventing reproduction, then it stays in the gene pool. Basically, I'm saying this: > The trait is still here and still prevalent meaning people are still getting laid and starting families and presumably leading fulfilling lives.

Malidir 2y ago

>The belief that some people have an innate skill that they are born with is deeply unhelpful. Whilst some people (mostly spectrum) do seem have an innate talent, I would argue that it is more an inbuilt ability to hyper focus on a topic, whether that topic be mathematics, Star Trek, dinosaurs or legacy console games from the 1980’s. Nonsense! The brain you are born with materially dictates the ceiling of your talent. A person with average ability can with dedication and focus over many years become reasonably good, but a genius can do the same in 1 year and at a young age. We have an education system which gives an A Grade if you pass the course, but 1 person may put on 5 hours a week and the other works day and night.

PittleyDunkin 2y ago
What makes you think that "genius" is nature and not nurture? I'd love to see the evidence for this; i'm deeply skeptical. Edit: I don't mean to argue that there aren't genetics involved in determining aptitude on certain tasks, of course, but the assumption that genius is born and never made feels like a very shallow understanding of the capacity of man.
- Malidir 2y ago
  > I'd love to see the evidence for this; i'm deeply skeptical. Cool, come and have a coffee with me :) I have older and younger siblings and was the one randomly blessed. Whereas most recognised talents are associated with hard work and so there is then this visible link, I am a good example as I did the bare minimum throughout education (and beyond...). The way my brain processes and selectively discards/stores the information it receives is very different to majority of the population. I have no control over it. I take zero credit for any of my achievments - I regularly meet intelligent people near to retirement who have been to a tier 1 university, may have PHDs, worked 60 hours a week since they were born, been on course and what not and cannot reach the levels I can. My nurturing was no different to siblings/peers (and was terrible!) Note: I have my weaknesses too, but as a whole, I am exceptional. Not through effort!! Completely random - neither of my parents are intelligent and nothing up the ancestary tree as far as I know.

dennis_jeeves2 2y ago

>I strongly believe that the average human being can be exceptional in any niche topic given enough time, dedication and focus. And this also gives the proponent (you in this case) an excuse to blame a person for not focusing hard enough or not being dedicated enough if they don't grasp the basics, let alone excel.

InDubioProRubio 2y ago

The boostrap skill is the ability to obsess over something. To focus and self-reward on anything is a heaven sent. Good thing we do not medicate that if we are unable to get that energy on the road, that base skill.

sdeframond 2y ago

> I strongly believe that the average human being can be exceptional in any niche topic given enough time, dedication and focus. I respectfully, but strongly, disagree. There's a reason most NBA players are over 2 meters tall, and one does not become taller with time, dedication nor focus. It might be different for intellectual skills but I am not that sure. Almost anyone can become decent at almost anything though. Which is good already!

wtetzner 2y ago
> I respectfully, but strongly, disagree. There's a reason most NBA players are over 2 meters tall, and one does not become taller with time, dedication nor focus. Being tall isn't a skill. I suspect you could be skillful enough at basketball to overcome the hight disadvantage. However, I think most people who might become that skillful see the high disadvantage (plus the general difficulty of becoming a pro basketball player) and take a different path through life. It's also possible that the amount of time that would be needed to grow your skill past the height disadvantage is too long, so it's not feasible to do it to gain a position in the NBA.
- rafaelero 2y ago
  Intelligence is also not a skill, but the thing that makes you skillful in all cognitive tasks. Just like what height does to basketball players.
  - nemo 2y ago
    >Intelligence is also not skill, but the thing that makes you skillful in all cognitive tasks. Careful with that "all", even the most highly intelligent humans still have peaks and deficits in different domains.
    - samatman 2y ago
      It's a matter of the definition. The general factor of intelligence, which is measured through various somewhat lossy proxies like IQ tests, is exactly the degree to which someone exceeds expectation on all cognitive tasks (or vice versa). The interesting finding is that this universal correlation is strong, real, and durable. Of course people in general have cognitive domains where they function better or worse than their g factor indicates, and that's before we get into the fact that intellectual task performance is strongly predicated on knowledge and practice, which is difficult to control for outside of tests designed (successfully, I must add) to do so.

hilbert42 2y ago

"What we should be teaching children is HOW to learn." Absolutely correct. And that begins with getting their interest, thus their attention; and that's a whole subject in and of itself.

Gimpei 2y ago

I don’t know if I agree. Grad school was profoundly humbling to me because it really showed me that there are a LOT of people out there that are just much much better than me at math. There are different levels of innate talent.

red75prime 2y ago

> The belief that some people have an innate skill that they are born with is deeply unhelpful. In practice your views result in stinting access of non-existent (in your opinion) talented children to a faster education track. They don't exist therefore they don't need different treatment (finer points get lost when the idea disseminates). Quite a hot theme in American education two (or so) years ago.

scubbo 2y ago

> an inbuilt ability to hyper focus on a topic, whether that topic be mathematics, Star Trek, dinosaurs or legacy console games from the 1980’s. I see you're familiar with Ryan North.

myworkinisgood 2y ago

Math is a stepping stone to critical thinking skills. And while one can probably learn those skills in any way, math forces you to learn those skills by learning the method of writing proofs. No other field forces you to push your critical thinking skills to the limit that math does.