10 ms·

Oh my goodness this is the worst kind of bikeshedding imaginable. Mostly people who know of the 10,000 hours rule don't embody it as being the cold, hard, dry t

by selmnoo 12y ago

Oh my goodness this is the worst kind of bikeshedding imaginable. Mostly people who know of the 10,000 hours rule don't embody it as being the cold, hard, dry truth, everything is very complicated when you get really down and dirty. But for most practical purposes, you bet that deliberate practice over 10,000 hours, instantaneous feedback, and expert instruction will bring you to superb mastery for most skillsets. Of course, this is not the whole story, genes undeniably matter -- but the reason we should ignore that is we cannot control our genes. 10,000 hours rule is about us becoming really good at something, it's pointless in this context to be nitpicky about the details that don't help us. Please don't waste time muddying up 10,000 hour rule -- a lot of people are starting to believe in it, that's so great, I want it to remain this way. Just one more thing: for the article to open up with something about chess masters (Magnus), and then not mention Judit Polgar [1](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judit_Polg%C3%A1r http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judit_Polg%C3%A1r) -- the strongest female chess player by a large margin, who is kind of a product of the 10,000 hour rule (see wiki), is very strange. I want to disregard the article almost entirely just because of this. [1]: Polgár was born on 23 July 1976 in Budapest, to a Hungarian Jewish family. Polgár and her two older sisters, Grandmaster Susan and International Master Sofia, were part of an educational experiment carried out by their father László Polgár, in an attempt to prove that children could make exceptional achievements if trained in a specialist subject from a very early age. "Geniuses are made, not born", was László's thesis. He and his wife Klára educated their three daughters at home, with chess as the specialist subject. She is the first, and to date, only woman to have surpassed the 2700 Elo rating barrier, reaching a career peak rating of 2735 and peak world ranking of #8, both achieved in 2005. She has been the #1 rated woman in the world since 1989 (when she was 12 years old).

Oculus 12y ago
Thank you, I came here to express the same disappointment with the article. People who attempt to discredit the 10,000 hour rule need to realize it describes a mindset more then anything else.
kmkemp 12y ago
I don't think that's what the author was trying to say. The point of the 10,000 hours rule lies in it being the largest factor towards success... not in it being the only factor. This article doesn't misrepresent that position... instead, it tries to show that there are factors larger than practice for many skills. Given the entire body of evidence from Outliers and some of the studies mentioned in the article, though, I would come to the conclusion that the magnitude to which various factors matter differ by the skill being measured.
sayemm 12y ago
Wow... that's very fascinating, thanks for that reference. Also sort of similar is the story of eight-time World Memory Champion, Dominic O'Brien - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominic_O%27Brien http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominic_O%27Brien http://www.real-memory-improvement.com/dominic-obrien.html http://www.real-memory-improvement.com/dominic-obrien.html He never had superior intelligence growing up, it's something he trained really hard for. And I actually read his books and audio CDs a few years ago, and competed in one of these memory championships myself. At the peak of my training, I was able to memorize a pack of cards in order in under 2 minutes.
- spott 12y ago
  >I was able to memorize a pack of cards in order in under 2 minutes. How long did that last? A week later, how much of the deck did you remember?
  - sayemm 12y ago
    Had recall for about 3 days. But it really depends on how often I refreshed my memory for it.
haberman 12y ago
Your comment exasperates and frustrates me in much the same way as the original article does for you. The article is full of evidence for why the 10,000 hour "rule" isn't really true at all. But you say you want people to believe it anyway. To me, there are few things more grating than pop science that isn't true, but gets repeated because it sounds good. And the "10,000 hour rule" is worse than just a trivial factoid. It is a recipe for disappointment. If you tell someone that, despite their initial lack of talent, they can be "superb" at anything they want, and 10,000 hours later they are still mediocre at best, don't you think it would be frustrating to have wasted that much time? I want people to dream, but also to know themselves and to be able to perceive the difference between what comes easily and what doesn't. Achieving mastery of something is a deeply satisfying experience; a person's best shot at that is becoming acquainted for their real talents. Judit Polgar is not "a product of the 10,000 hour rule." While it's true that she devoted an extreme amount of dedicated practice, she also showed extreme talents from a very early age. When she was five she defeated a family friend at chess without looking at the board. I doubt she had practiced 10,000 hours by then, or that most five year olds with a comparable level of instruction could have done that. Actually I would seriously wager that even with 10,000 hours of practice I would not be capable of doing what she did at 5.
- tomsthumb 12y ago
  > If you tell someone that, despite their initial lack of talent, they can be "superb" at anything they want, and 10,000 hours later they are still mediocre at best, don't you think it would be frustrating to have wasted that much time? Who are these mediocre people who have put in 10k hours of deliberate practice? I can't recall anyone I'd call mediocre who's put in more than a thousand hours at something.
  - haberman 12y ago
    My observation as a musician is that most musicians plateau at a certain point, based on their inherent talents, and their gains after that point are much more marginal. Many people do continue to study in earnest (and invest a lot of time into "deliberate practice") after hitting this plateau, in an effort to make bigger gains. Though many will instead choose to make music a more recreational part of their life, and move onto other things as their life's primary focus. But I think it's severe confirmation bias to say "everyone who is good put in 10k hours, and few people make it to 10k hours without being really good." Because the only counterexample to that is someone who continues practicing intensely for 10k hours without seeing noticeable gains. And why would someone do that (unless they are chasing the siren of the 10k hour rule)?
Dewie 12y ago
> Mostly people who know of the 10,000 hours rule don't embody it as being the cold, hard, dry truth, Eh, the granularity of the measurement tends to indicate the confidence of the possible deviation from the given measurement. Giving a so-called rule in hours sounds much more hard and fast than simply giving it in the form of something like years.
tzs 12y ago
Here is a longer, more detailed article on the Polgar experiment [1]. Unfortunately, since the Polgar sisters were all full siblings, it is possible that they were born geniuses, not made geniuses. Laszlo Polgar wanted to try the experiment again, this time with three boys adopted from a developing nation, but his wife talked him out of it. For the sake of argument, let's assume that many or most kids would, if given the Polgar treatment in a field become world class in that field. Then an important and interesting question is how early do you have to start? The Polgars started at 4. The problem I see with starting that young is that it is before the child has a chance to figure out what they are interested in. If you can wait until the child has developed definite interests, and then give the Polgar treatment in one of those, you might have a better chance of the child actually sticking with that as a career. That's kind of how it was with Carlsen. His parents did not thrust it upon him. He was taught the game at 5, and showed little interest in it. Later, he developed an interest on his own, studied on his own, and started doing well. His parents then provided good support so that he could develop that interest. [1] http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200506/the-grandmaster-experiment http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200506/the-grandmast...
flint 12y ago
Well, learning what bikeshedding was made the click worth it. Thank you.

by selmnoo 12y ago

Oculus 12y ago

Thank you, I came here to express the same disappointment with the article. People who attempt to discredit the 10,000 hour rule need to realize it describes a mindset more then anything else.

kmkemp 12y ago

I don't think that's what the author was trying to say. The point of the 10,000 hours rule lies in it being the largest factor towards success... not in it being the only factor. This article doesn't misrepresent that position... instead, it tries to show that there are factors larger than practice for many skills. Given the entire body of evidence from Outliers and some of the studies mentioned in the article, though, I would come to the conclusion that the magnitude to which various factors matter differ by the skill being measured.

sayemm 12y ago

Wow... that's very fascinating, thanks for that reference. Also sort of similar is the story of eight-time World Memory Champion, Dominic O'Brien - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominic_O%27Brien http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominic_O%27Brien http://www.real-memory-improvement.com/dominic-obrien.html http://www.real-memory-improvement.com/dominic-obrien.html He never had superior intelligence growing up, it's something he trained really hard for. And I actually read his books and audio CDs a few years ago, and competed in one of these memory championships myself. At the peak of my training, I was able to memorize a pack of cards in order in under 2 minutes.

spott 12y ago
>I was able to memorize a pack of cards in order in under 2 minutes. How long did that last? A week later, how much of the deck did you remember?
- sayemm 12y ago
  Had recall for about 3 days. But it really depends on how often I refreshed my memory for it.

haberman 12y ago

Your comment exasperates and frustrates me in much the same way as the original article does for you. The article is full of evidence for why the 10,000 hour "rule" isn't really true at all. But you say you want people to believe it anyway. To me, there are few things more grating than pop science that isn't true, but gets repeated because it sounds good. And the "10,000 hour rule" is worse than just a trivial factoid. It is a recipe for disappointment. If you tell someone that, despite their initial lack of talent, they can be "superb" at anything they want, and 10,000 hours later they are still mediocre at best, don't you think it would be frustrating to have wasted that much time? I want people to dream, but also to know themselves and to be able to perceive the difference between what comes easily and what doesn't. Achieving mastery of something is a deeply satisfying experience; a person's best shot at that is becoming acquainted for their real talents. Judit Polgar is not "a product of the 10,000 hour rule." While it's true that she devoted an extreme amount of dedicated practice, she also showed extreme talents from a very early age. When she was five she defeated a family friend at chess without looking at the board. I doubt she had practiced 10,000 hours by then, or that most five year olds with a comparable level of instruction could have done that. Actually I would seriously wager that even with 10,000 hours of practice I would not be capable of doing what she did at 5.

tomsthumb 12y ago
> If you tell someone that, despite their initial lack of talent, they can be "superb" at anything they want, and 10,000 hours later they are still mediocre at best, don't you think it would be frustrating to have wasted that much time? Who are these mediocre people who have put in 10k hours of deliberate practice? I can't recall anyone I'd call mediocre who's put in more than a thousand hours at something.
- haberman 12y ago
  My observation as a musician is that most musicians plateau at a certain point, based on their inherent talents, and their gains after that point are much more marginal. Many people do continue to study in earnest (and invest a lot of time into "deliberate practice") after hitting this plateau, in an effort to make bigger gains. Though many will instead choose to make music a more recreational part of their life, and move onto other things as their life's primary focus. But I think it's severe confirmation bias to say "everyone who is good put in 10k hours, and few people make it to 10k hours without being really good." Because the only counterexample to that is someone who continues practicing intensely for 10k hours without seeing noticeable gains. And why would someone do that (unless they are chasing the siren of the 10k hour rule)?

Dewie 12y ago

> Mostly people who know of the 10,000 hours rule don't embody it as being the cold, hard, dry truth, Eh, the granularity of the measurement tends to indicate the confidence of the possible deviation from the given measurement. Giving a so-called rule in hours sounds much more hard and fast than simply giving it in the form of something like years.

tzs 12y ago

Here is a longer, more detailed article on the Polgar experiment [1]. Unfortunately, since the Polgar sisters were all full siblings, it is possible that they were born geniuses, not made geniuses. Laszlo Polgar wanted to try the experiment again, this time with three boys adopted from a developing nation, but his wife talked him out of it. For the sake of argument, let's assume that many or most kids would, if given the Polgar treatment in a field become world class in that field. Then an important and interesting question is how early do you have to start? The Polgars started at 4. The problem I see with starting that young is that it is before the child has a chance to figure out what they are interested in. If you can wait until the child has developed definite interests, and then give the Polgar treatment in one of those, you might have a better chance of the child actually sticking with that as a career. That's kind of how it was with Carlsen. His parents did not thrust it upon him. He was taught the game at 5, and showed little interest in it. Later, he developed an interest on his own, studied on his own, and started doing well. His parents then provided good support so that he could develop that interest. [1] http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200506/the-grandmaster-experiment http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200506/the-grandmast...

flint 12y ago

Well, learning what bikeshedding was made the click worth it. Thank you.