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It's not challenged by reality at all, you are just misunderstanding it (probably because you have not read the book and probably because of my terrible simplif

by PM_Tech 12y ago

It's not challenged by reality at all, you are just misunderstanding it (probably because you have not read the book and probably because of my terrible simplification). You keep referring to talent. Which does not exist, has never been proven and has been disproven numerous times by taking sportsman out of their chosen sport but into a new sport requiring similar talent and testing their performance which is always sub-par and hovering around average. The primary example used is table tennis players are famed for having naturally quick reflexes. In every academic study, table tennis players performed no quicker than average in any reflexes test and in some cases performed worse than various random individuals from the street. There are others but you should read the book before discounting a hypothesis. I have read enough to convince me natural talent is a myth; the equivalent of a rain dance is the reason for rain.

Marazan 12y ago
This is Syed's stawman, as I state - training is dominant over any innate 'talent' and there isn't anyone seriously engaged in the debate that disagrees with this. Hard work and dedication will make anyone good at anything - no-one disputes this. But Syed wants to apply this to the elite level as well. The elite level is where outliers live on an everyday basis The studies he cites goes the wrong way to draw the conclusion that he wants to draw - it's not about saying table tennis players have super quick reflexes that apply generally it's that some people have super quick reflexes of a type that apply to table tennis. So, whilst Table Tennis players' 'quick reflexes' are clearly trained for the specific situation of Table Tennis rather than being the results of having 'talented' generalist quick reflexes there will be, in the pool of all of humanity, people who's natural bio-mechanic disposition makes them have Table Tennis appropriate quick-reflexes. So if that person applies hard work and dedication to Table Tennis then they will be better than someone without the bio-mechanical advantage who puts in the same hard work and dedication. But if they apply hard work and dedication to another discipline that require fast reflexes they won't be any better as their 'talent' doesn't apply. I follow rugby, rugby is littered with players who were really good but who's body could not take the strain of the training and broke down through the effort. Clearly hard work and dedication alone was not enough for them - they needed a body that could respond favorably to the punishment they were taking.
- PM_Tech 12y ago
  You need to read the book, you disagreeing with the hypothesis with nothing to back up your assertions other than your opinion. Do you think human beings with super quick reflexes exist? That does not stand up to scientific scrutiny. I fear we are at an impasse, you have your views and it appears they preclude reading anything that challenges them. Interestingly, I had similar views before reading the cited studies.
  - Marazan 12y ago
    No, I am saying that people have physiological maximums. No matter how hard I train I am not going to become taller (or shorter), no matter how hard I train my knee and ankles will only support a certain mount of force and torque I cannot push past that (without suffering repeated and continual injury) - this is law of the universe stuff. At the level of becoming very good indeed these limits have no effect on becoming better as you do not reach them, but at the elite level, at becoming the best they do. Do you really believe that the guy who came 2nd to 7th in the 2012 Olympic 100m sprint trained an appreciable, measurable, amount less than Usain Bolt - with less dedication, application and rigour? Do you think, say, Gatlin, Gaye and Bailyey trained in a worse environment less conducive to success than Bolt? Are you really saying you can go look Donnie MacFadyen in the face and say he just didn't train with enough dedication?
    - PM_Tech 12y ago
      You are appealing to emotion. Elite athletes are already outliers within the human race however within athletics there are extreme outliers like Bolt and Phelps who have astronomically rare genetic advantages. To be representative they need to be discounted. Not even the Olympics is N number of Usain Bolts racing against each other. It is N number + Usain Bolt. Donnie McFayden may have trained as hard as he thought he could. That does not mean he was in the optimum training environment, he apportioned his time correctly or he trained with focus required to be better than he is. His training habits may have become effective simply too late in his career (Maybe he took training seriously at 8 years old but his competitors (in team and other team) took it seriously at 4. Maybe he is absolutely outstanding but the team failed him. The factors are numerous. It might just be he is unlucky; his coaches didn't recognise his brilliance or they played him out of position. The point is not why is Donnie not the absolute best in history. It is 'Can anyone with the basic requirements reach the level of playing international rugby with the right focus and training and luck - the answer is yes, yes they can.' They literally just have to want it enough and have the resources (time, money, family, coaches) in place to achieve it. Anyone can be a Chess Grandmaster with enough study. Proven by Laszlo who specifically taught his children chess in order to prove geniuses are made/trained, not born." http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200506/the-grandmaster-experiment http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200506/the-grandmast... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Polg%C3%A1r http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Polg%C3%A1r Also proven by the Williams sisters whose father decided* they would be tennis champions and worked them mercilessly towards that goal using any equipment to hand. Unless your hypothesis is that - Two genius tennis prodigies were born with the gifts required to be a tennis prodigy and their father just happened to settle on the sport of Tennis? I think those odds are considerably more unlikely than "anyone can be a Tennis champion with the basic requirements and dedication which is what the Williams sisters had."

by PM_Tech 12y ago

Marazan 12y ago

This is Syed's stawman, as I state - training is dominant over any innate 'talent' and there isn't anyone seriously engaged in the debate that disagrees with this. Hard work and dedication will make anyone good at anything - no-one disputes this. But Syed wants to apply this to the elite level as well. The elite level is where outliers live on an everyday basis The studies he cites goes the wrong way to draw the conclusion that he wants to draw - it's not about saying table tennis players have super quick reflexes that apply generally it's that some people have super quick reflexes of a type that apply to table tennis. So, whilst Table Tennis players' 'quick reflexes' are clearly trained for the specific situation of Table Tennis rather than being the results of having 'talented' generalist quick reflexes there will be, in the pool of all of humanity, people who's natural bio-mechanic disposition makes them have Table Tennis appropriate quick-reflexes. So if that person applies hard work and dedication to Table Tennis then they will be better than someone without the bio-mechanical advantage who puts in the same hard work and dedication. But if they apply hard work and dedication to another discipline that require fast reflexes they won't be any better as their 'talent' doesn't apply. I follow rugby, rugby is littered with players who were really good but who's body could not take the strain of the training and broke down through the effort. Clearly hard work and dedication alone was not enough for them - they needed a body that could respond favorably to the punishment they were taking.

PM_Tech 12y ago
You need to read the book, you disagreeing with the hypothesis with nothing to back up your assertions other than your opinion. Do you think human beings with super quick reflexes exist? That does not stand up to scientific scrutiny. I fear we are at an impasse, you have your views and it appears they preclude reading anything that challenges them. Interestingly, I had similar views before reading the cited studies.
- Marazan 12y ago
  No, I am saying that people have physiological maximums. No matter how hard I train I am not going to become taller (or shorter), no matter how hard I train my knee and ankles will only support a certain mount of force and torque I cannot push past that (without suffering repeated and continual injury) - this is law of the universe stuff. At the level of becoming very good indeed these limits have no effect on becoming better as you do not reach them, but at the elite level, at becoming the best they do. Do you really believe that the guy who came 2nd to 7th in the 2012 Olympic 100m sprint trained an appreciable, measurable, amount less than Usain Bolt - with less dedication, application and rigour? Do you think, say, Gatlin, Gaye and Bailyey trained in a worse environment less conducive to success than Bolt? Are you really saying you can go look Donnie MacFadyen in the face and say he just didn't train with enough dedication?
  - PM_Tech 12y ago
    You are appealing to emotion. Elite athletes are already outliers within the human race however within athletics there are extreme outliers like Bolt and Phelps who have astronomically rare genetic advantages. To be representative they need to be discounted. Not even the Olympics is N number of Usain Bolts racing against each other. It is N number + Usain Bolt. Donnie McFayden may have trained as hard as he thought he could. That does not mean he was in the optimum training environment, he apportioned his time correctly or he trained with focus required to be better than he is. His training habits may have become effective simply too late in his career (Maybe he took training seriously at 8 years old but his competitors (in team and other team) took it seriously at 4. Maybe he is absolutely outstanding but the team failed him. The factors are numerous. It might just be he is unlucky; his coaches didn't recognise his brilliance or they played him out of position. The point is not why is Donnie not the absolute best in history. It is 'Can anyone with the basic requirements reach the level of playing international rugby with the right focus and training and luck - the answer is yes, yes they can.' They literally just have to want it enough and have the resources (time, money, family, coaches) in place to achieve it. Anyone can be a Chess Grandmaster with enough study. Proven by Laszlo who specifically taught his children chess in order to prove geniuses are made/trained, not born." http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200506/the-grandmaster-experiment http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200506/the-grandmast... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Polg%C3%A1r http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Polg%C3%A1r Also proven by the Williams sisters whose father decided* they would be tennis champions and worked them mercilessly towards that goal using any equipment to hand. Unless your hypothesis is that - Two genius tennis prodigies were born with the gifts required to be a tennis prodigy and their father just happened to settle on the sport of Tennis? I think those odds are considerably more unlikely than "anyone can be a Tennis champion with the basic requirements and dedication which is what the Williams sisters had."