4 ms·
It will be interesting to see how well Gladwell's claim stands up to empirical testing.
by taybin 12y ago
It will be interesting to see how well Gladwell's claim stands up to empirical testing.
- robinwarren 12y agoThis is a good read on the 10,000 hour myth. I can't remember where I originally heard that the idea as pushed by Gladwell has been debunked, probably the You are not so smart podcast. I've no personal insight to say whether this is a rule or a myth but the original researcher seems to disagree with the popsci understanding of it. http://changingthegameproject.com/the-10000-hour-myth/ http://changingthegameproject.com/the-10000-hour-myth/
- Plough_Jogger 12y agoA research paper authored last year cited a study which found that only 30% of the variation in performance could be attributed to deliberate practice. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289613000421 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289613...
- roadnottaken 12y agoVery interesting, thanks
- b_emery 12y agoWhich begs the question, what percent of the variation distinguishes the 'expert' from the non-expert?
- splat 12y agoMy understanding was that the claim was that the 10,000 hours rule was a necessary but not a sufficient condition for mastery. So any world class golfer will have played for at least ~10,000 hours, but not every golfer who has played for at least ~10,000 hours will be world class. The only way the hypothesis could be falsified is if Dan becomes a world class golfer in less than ~10,000 hours.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- lazyant 12y agoIt wasn't his claim originally; he took a paper and summarized it in the 10,000 hour rule, even the original paper author has denied the claim stated as such.
- loumf 12y agoThere is a better summary of the studies in "Thinking, Fast and Slow" From what I remember, the claim is that 10,000 hours of deliberate practice work best when: 1. You get immediate feedback on success and failure 2. The thing you are trying to master has a skill set that can be improved, and that improving that skill is sufficient. That #2 is tricky -- a counter example is stock picking. We have no evidence that there is a skill that can be learned that will make you better at picking stocks, so 10,000 hours of deliberate practice, even with immediate feedback, won't help. I think that Dan is following a reasonable deliberate practice plan with experts and that he does get fast feedback. What we don't know is if Golf is something that is primarily/mostly/all skill based. For example, what if there was a physical body type that made you better and Dan didn't have it -- then 10,000 hours might not help. Also, the point of the 10,000 hours is to train your intuitive mind (System 1, the fast thinker) to be as correct as your deliberate mind would be (System 2, the slow thinker) if you had time and attention. This whole thing is much better for thinking-based activities, like say, programming. I don't remember if the studies looked at physical activities and "muscle-memory". Caveat: this is all from memory -- read "Thinking, Fast and Slow" if you have interest in this.
- lazyant 12y agoI read Thinking Fast and Slow and also I also read a better summary of the initial study, by the author I think. The 10,000 hour was taking from a study from top music performers (so, no random population), also there was a lot of variance; for ex among chess players some achieved mastery in 5,000 hours, others put in more than 10,000 and didn't achieve it. So lots of deliberate practice is good, arbitrary 10k hours is BS.
- soperj 12y agoThere is a skill that makes stock picking work, Warren Buffett & Benjamin Graham have written all about it.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- stupidcar 12y agoWhat is it you imagine Gladwell's "claim" to be? Because he's repudiated the idea that he or any other informed researcher claimed 10,000 hours was some magic number, or that practice alone is a substitute for talent: http://www.newyorker.com/news/sporting-scene/complexity-and-the-ten-thousand-hour-rule http://www.newyorker.com/news/sporting-scene/complexity-and-... It would have been more accurate to say "It will be interesting to see how well a gross mischaracterisation of Gladwell's claim stands up to empirical testing".
- icushman 12y agoHe probably imagines Gladwell's claim to be, and I'm quoting from Outliers, "In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours." You'll note this unequivocally contradicts the claim you just made. That Gladwell later wrote a much, much less popular article for the New Yorker in which he walked back that totally outlandish claim doesn't justify indignation at people remembering what he wrote.
- ericdykstra 12y agoThe "Malcolm Gladwell 10,000 Hour rule" Rule: In any discussion about mastery, people who have never read Outliers will attribute Gladwell with the idea of the 10,000 Hour Rule, take it out of context, and argue with it as if it were the main point of the book, or as if it was presented as a hard and fast rule.