Recently, I was chatting with a cognitive scientist at a party, and he mentioned in passing that he didn’t believe there was such a thing as innate talent. All one needs is enough deliberate practice. I was really surprised. This was from a guy whom I know thinks much of human psychology is innate: that we have innate concepts, desires, etc. So I decided to fish around casually.
I gather this idea is not news, even among laypeople. Malcolm Gladwell wrote about it. I didn’t read the book. The one Gladwell book I’ve read, Blink, was on a topic with which I am familiar. I was unimpressed. So I haven’t revisited him. I don’t get the sense that this view is now a widely held belief. So I decided to post about it anyway.
I had read that children perform much better, and male/female gaps in math are closed, when the children are told that there is no such thing as innate talent. One should praise effort, not capacities. But I assumed that was a useful fiction to tell children; not the truth. I now believe that while it’s not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that there is no such thing as innate talent, there is no evidence that there is as innate talent. The negative has not been proven, but the positive has not either. This goes for cognitive achievements, such as math, chess, and music, as well as athletic achievements. There are two exceptions. Body size and height are important for some things, primarily athletic, and they are genetically heritable. But there is no evidence that any other capacity is heritable or innate. Here‘s a really good argument for the case. TFA is rather long to R, so I’ll sum up the main points below.
What you need to gain expertise in any field is 10,000 hours of deliberate practice. Any healthy person (i.e., no chromosomal disorders, brain injurys, birth defects, etc.) can gain expertise in anything. Sports, math, music, art. “Deliberate practice” means time spent alone challenging yourself to get to the next level. Just repeating that at which you are already expert does not count. So it’s not 10,000 hours of experience. Also, working in groups apparently does not do the same trick. A chess player who only practices by playing with other people will not see the improvements. You need to be alone, pushing yourself.
This is not to say that all it takes is a dream and you can be whatever you want. That cliche remains as cloying and ill-founded as ever. First of all, the motivation or interest for certain domains may well be inherited, as opposed to capacities. And that could make a huge difference. What also might also be inherited is a tendency toward diligence. Certain temperaments are more diligent than others (as well as more interested in achievement). Temperaments are probably at least somewhat innate. It takes an enormous amount of diligence to stick with pushing yourself against the upper limits of your abilities while you make mistake after mistake. Alone. At some point, the vast majority of people just give up and coast at a good-enough level of ability. But some can bear to push themselves further. Similarly, anyone can be as thin as model if they eat few enough calories, but most people cannot bear to do that. And some can.
Your childhood environment matters, and you can’t go back and fix that. There are certain developmental windows where you need exposure and practice or you don’t gain an ability. The resources to which you have access also make a difference. So does parental encouragement. Tiger Woods, John Stuart Mill, Andre Agassi, and Mozart (off the top of my head, I am sure that there are more) all had parents who instituted forced practice in a particular domain from an extremely young age. Also, one may have learned bad habits in childhood, which may be difficult to unlearn, while others are trained correctly from the get-go.
There’s one idea with which you have to agree to if you’re going to buy all this. That is, that the best way to determine if talent is innate is not by measures such as IQ. Rather, the best way to look at it is to look at actual talented people and see what they have in common. IQ may be heritable, while talent is not.
This idea makes a lot of sense to me. IQ is an imperfect correlation with expertise in a field. I’m sure we all know people who have very high IQs and have not achieved expertise in a particular area. And there are plenty of people who have achieved expertise who don’t have very high IQs. Apparently, Richard Feynmann’s IQ was tested in high school and found to be 123. IQ correlates perfectly…to IQ. So it’s a bit question-begging. What correlates perfectly to expertise is expertise itself. So rather than look at people with high IQs and insist that they could have done more, but didn’t (a view for which there is not much evidence), let’s restrict our view to people who did do well.
And what do we see? That no one becomes an expert without practice. That is, there is no expert in any domain who did not practice and practice and practice. Even child prodigies. Child prodigies have all practiced. Child prodigies often show a particular interest for a certain domain at a very young age, and a strong desire to master it, and a willingness to keep at it. But no one writes a symphony off the bat. The difference between East Asian and American math scores disappear when you control for practice time.
Moreover, no one, no expert, makes sudden leaps in levels of expertise. Everyone makes the same progressions through the same stages of mastery. And anyone can progress to the next level with the same amount of deliberate practice.
No specific genes have been found that actually underlie expertise in any domain.
Deliberate practices actually alters your body to increase its capacities. Athletic abilities peak in a person’s late 20s – 10 years after the human body fully matures – when one has practiced for some time with a fully mature body.
In short, I am reasonably persuaded that there is no special reason to think there is innate talent. (Confidential to Russell: which means I am persuaded that you could indeed have been Bertrand Russell, had you put the time in.)
Turning to ramifications of this idea for some personal interests of mine:
Does this mean we should all become tiger mothers, or Tiger Woods’ father? I could see that as a possibility, but my tendency is to say no. First of all, there’s a lot to a meaningful life besides expertise. Time spent developing expertise is time not spent learning to be a better socializer, volunteering, developing moral character traits, or enjoying oneself. Also, it robs the child of deciding for himself. My instinct is simply to tell children that they can indeed be expert with deliberate practice, and to give them an opportunity to practice where their interests lie. We should also give up on talent-spotting and milestone watching. Spotted childhood talent correlates quite badly with adult achievement. Professional athletes are far more likely to be born in some months of the year than others (3 to 6 times more likely in soccer and ice hockey). Why? Well, they were the oldest in their grade. Thus it looked to a coach (who probably didn’t know their birthdays) as if they had more innate talent, and those were the students who were cultivated. We could better spend our time on teaching every kid, and trying to instill good habits.
As a philosopher and teacher of philosophy, I’ve found it frustrating that students feel as if philosophy is something you can’t learn. They feel it’s something you either automatically do, i.e., that it just comes to you, or you can’t do. I’ve always suspected that was BS, especially seeing how much I progressed with practice. Now I’m pretty sure it’s BS. I’ll have to think about how to communicate that to students! Other people I talk to have very dim views on academic philosophy. They feel strongly that being an academic does not mean one is any more expert in philosophy than anyone else. They think anyone can be a philosopher, and no one needs training. Some, indeed, think the academy only hurts one’s philosophical abilities by encouraging groupthink. People don’t, I think, believe the same thing about other fields, such as math or science. It is of course true in the sense that, as I’ve said above, I think literally any healthy human being could be a philosopher with deliberate practice. But academic philosophers have an important advantage. Academic philosophers practice philosophy every day for hours. They read it, they write it, their work gets criticized by experts. One must do most of it alone. Most, at least until tenure, are very motivated to push their abilities to the limit. Anyone can be a philosopher, but pretty much only academic philosophers get that much practice and criticism.
“I decided to fish around casually.”
Comments-section protocol leads to an…odd interpretation of this sentence.
While I endorse the idea (and Carol Dweck’s mindset theory) I think I disagree about talent in some dimensions. My sense of rhythm is very very weak. This makes playing musical instruments rather difficult and unrewarding. Likewise my vocal range is very small (which seems to be an anatomical thing), which makes most songs outside my range.
Relative to athletics, there are innate differences that aren’t amenable to training, such as the proportion of slow twitch to fast twitch muscle fibers which affect running speed, and so on.
are slow twitch versus fast twitch the same as red versus white muscle fibers? Because those ARE amenable to training — endurance trains red, speed/power trains white.
Rhythm and vocal intonation (which is largely a matter of motor coordination of the larynx) are possibly explicable my motivation/interest, i.e., they have not been shown to be the result of an innate talent.
I don’t know the science on slow twitch and fast twitch enough to comment on whether it absolutely definitively derives only from genes and not from practice. Maybe it should be added to body height and size, maybe not.
Rose-
Doesn’t your last sentence seem to put us in a place where you are arguing that there is no such thing as innate talent except where there is?
I’m confused. My point was that anyone could possibly be a philosopher, but academic philosophers tend to have the most practice and instruction, which are not innate.
I was referring to fast twitch and slow twitch. You’ve already conceded that some things (height, weight) are genetic and, to some extent, innate. If you add fast twitch vs slow twitch, that is niw another innate skill or talent. From there, it is likely going to be the case that most physiological/physical traits are largely genetic, or innate. Usain Bolt and other elite sprinters are not just a sum of height and weight and fast twitch muscles, but also things like hip structure, foot size, lung capacity, etc.
So it seems to me that some talents and skills are innate, while others are not, with physical talents/skills skewing towards the former and others skewing towards the latter. It just seemed as if you were simply disregarding those things that don’t fit the hypothesis that there is no innate talent as exceptions that don’t justify revisiting the original hypthesis. Thoughts?
I was referring to your last sentence in the comment I replied to, not the lasr sentence of the OP. Sorry.
Oh, I only said that because I have no idea whether fast twitch and slow twitch muscles are directly linked to genes. If so, there is one more thing. However, while it’s certainly possible that property after property will be found to be linked genetics, most of them have not so far, and not for want of looking. Many of these studies on expertise were done on expert athletes (because performance is measurable). They all practiced.
Oh, yes, of course they practiced. Usain Bolt didn’t come sprinting out of the womb (though his mom might have preferred that!).
When I think of these questions, I am of two minds. On the one hand, as a teacher, the entirety of my profession is based on the premise that children, and really humans in general, are not fixed beings. If they were, if we came out of the womb being who we were going to be, there wouldn’t be much of a need for teachers. Clearly, that is not the case. And I don’t just say that out of self-interest. There is enough evidence showing that environment is indeed a major factor in the people we ultimately become.
On the other hand, I also see children who are still in very formative stages of their development, and the differences in abilities is *ASTOUNDING*. And not all of it can be attributed to environment or “practice”.
When I think of what is “innate”, I tend to think of floors and ceilings. If I worked at becoming the greatest basketball player of all-time and LeBron James grew up in a world where sports didn’t exist, I’d likely be a better ball player than him. But if we both worked equally hard and equally diligently, he’s almost assuredly be better. His ceiling is higher than my ceiling. And if neither of us ever picked up a ball and were suddenly expected to square off, he likely would beat me. His floor is higher than my floor. And that is not simply a matter of height and weight. There are a number of other skills that he seemed more inclined to be skilled in than I am that contribute to the game of basketball. To this end, we also need not exclude those who are “unhealthy”; instead, we simply adjust where there ceilings and floors are, and can view them as being on the continuum instead of apart from it. So rather than say, “Everyone except THOSE folks could be Einstein or Mozart or Hawking if they worked hard enough,” we can say, “It is highly unlikely that anyone becomes Einstein or Mozart or Hawkins, but it is more likely that folks towards this end of the spectrum do than folks towards that end of the spectrum.” Otherwise, the line between those who are “healthy” and “unhealthy” becomes of *immense* importance.
In some ways, I suppose it comes down to how we define “innate”. If by “innate” we mean “fixed”, than, I agree, there is little that is truly innate. Even height is not innate in that regard… a guy may have the genes to grow to 6’10” but a bad diet or other environmental factors can stop him from ever reaching that height. But, on the flip side, if we use the idea of skills/talents not being innate to imply a certain tabla rasa, I can’t agree with that either.
Some babies walk before others. Some talk before others. Did they practice harder to get there? Unlikely. And if they did do something amounting to practice, why did they do that and not others? Babies are not rationale actors, so the mere notion of “practicing” might itself be an innate talent of sorts (Sidenote: David Thorpe, who writes for ESPN.com and runs a basketball training facility, says that many of the attributes of elite athletes that we assume can be taught or learned… things like “drive” or “hustle” or “hunger”… are no easier to teach than height or speed; of course, this is purely anecdotal, but it is a bit of a contrarian view that I find intriguing).
I should also note that I am a huge fan of the study mentioned that evaluated how children responded to being treated as if their knowledge was based on innate skill versus it being based on effort. I regularly share it with parents as guidance on how they offer encouragement to their children.
Kazzy, I hear you. I’m around that age group too. And the differences are obvious. A couple of things though – reaching milestones early does not correlate all that well with eventual expertise. Neither does seeming to be a very bright child. This study looked at people who achieved expertise as adults and saw what they had in common. Again, they all had practice, and that was all that could be found in common. THat’s is not to say there’s nothing else, just that it has not been found.
Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Thanks. Practice is indeed important, and I work to instill the types of attitudes that will lend themselves to practice in my students… a strong work ethic, task perseverance, frustration tolerance, risk taking, an understanding that seeking out challenges is how we learn, etc.
I guess I wonder how researchers would begin to look for a “talent” gene.
Kazzy,
There are floors, and there are ceilings. But what we gotta recognize is that being “a good musician” involves having at least one or two high ceilings. Out of at least five or six. (one is vocal/manual dexterity, another is compositional skills, a third is ability to read music, a fourth is ability to hear and decipher music…).
I guess the important point is: it’s quite possible to be a functional musical illiterate (unable to read notes on a page), and be a fantastic musician (Tori Amos, as cited above).
I’m certain some idol singers have absolutely zero talent in musical composition… and yet they’re still excellent musicians.
You can do whatever you want but you can’t want whatever you want.
I agree. And I would go further and push the definition of “talent” to include “wanting to” do whatever counts as the talent.
In high school, I really wanted to study history and French and English literature. I didn’t really want to study science. Therefore, I might say I have a “talent” in history and a “talent” in (some) foreign languages.
Concession: I started out not wanting to do math, but when I took trig and calculus, it got really interesting.
When my daughter was about three, she was telling me about all of the toys that would make her life complete. I was being the stern father.
“You know, you can’t have everything you want.”
“But, Daddy, I want everything I want.”
How did you play that? Three is a little young for Oscar Wilde but that’s the direction that first occurred to me…
I probably hugged her.
Yeah, I can see how that might work too.
“Not every little girl gets to do what they want. The world could not support that many ballerinas.”
Julia Ormond in Mad Men
Perfect pitch?
Tori Amos can’t read sheet music despite long hours of practicing and trying to get better at that (it helps when you go to Peabody).
Danny Elfman didn’t do much practicing with an orchestra before he started making fantastic soundtracks.
Perfect pitch is apparently one of the critical period things. If children are taught to associate pitches with names between the ages of 3 and 5, they can develop perfect pitch.
One of my music teachers (back in the late-80’s, early 90’s) explained to us that some vanishingly small percentage of American Music Students have perfect pitch (like 8% or something) while 40% of Japanese Music Students have it.
(I think it was an attempt to shame us into getting better at relative pitch, something that, in his words, “anyone can do”.)
I took an ear training class with someone who had perfect pitch. Not a great teaching choice – she could never understand why we couldn’t just hear it.
Has anyone investigated what it takes to grasp and accomplish the requirements for “challenging yourself to get to the next level” in specific contexts? That seems to be more complex than “interest” or “motivation,” but it’s also more complex, in my experience, than just doing it. I have seen plenty of people abandon a pursuit, or relegate it to hobby-only, because they just didn’t feel like they *could* do what they needed to do; people who had enough skill and enough experience at improving through practice that I don’t doubt their commitment or motivation, but just – they eventually hit a plateau they couldn’t get past, and didn’t have the deep understanding needed to break things down into the right pieces for themselves to take those next steps. I suppose this would be where extremely good teaching / educational literature would come into play?
And then, I have trouble abandoning the idea that talent sometimes manifests itself in the slackers of the world who do comparatively very well (not the top in their field; but just fine in their field) while putting in less work than their peers who log many more hours of practice. I’m not sure this is a specific talent; it might be more a question of relative metacognitive abilities? They’ve put the hours into learning about learning, thus need fewer hours of learning for specific skills?
As you can see by the rampant question marks in this comment, I am more puzzled by these findings than disbelieving them.
There are a lot of studies on what exactly constitutes challenging oneself for the next level. I haven’t read the majority of them. But I would guess that self-doubt, fear of failure, bad or no teaching could all be things that could impact one in spite of motivation.
I wonder about the slackers, too. They may have had more experience with a specific skill set that’s a prerequisite for the job (so for philosophy, a math background will put you ahead in formal logic, writing for other reasons means you don’t have as far to catch up in writing skills, etc.).
And yeah, maybe metacognition helps.
Also depends on the practice style of peers. If they practice in groups, it isn’t going to work. Also if they don’t challenge themselves.
“Rather, the best way to look at it is to look at actual talented people and see what they have in common. ”
Doesn’t this approach neglect untalented people, and by so neglecting them make it hard to venture a hypothesis about what they could have done?
Also, I’m very sympathetic to the charge that academic mathematicians and scientists might suffer from groupthink.
Well, that’s sort of the point. How can you say much of anything about what someone might have done? And I didn’t mean to imply that academics don’t suffer from groupthink – just that groupthink is not as much of a handicap as the advantages of much practice.
> Child prodigies often show a particular interest for a
> certain domain at a very young age, and a strong
> desire to master it, and a willingness to keep at it.
This plus Jaybird’s:
> You can do whatever you want but you can’t want
> whatever you want.
I don’t know that talent is inherited (not entirely certain it isn’t, to *some* degree). But I know that part of the human condition is overcoming your own psychological inertia for *anything*.
You work at anything long enough, you’re going to hit a part of the learning curve where you have to do stuff you don’t like. Over, and over, and over. Now, for skill set A and skill set B, those points may be in very different places on the learning curve.
So I might be able to get 7,934 hours of the way into Physics before I hit the part I don’t like, but I only get 54 hours into Painting before I hit the part I don’t like, and I might get 3,458 hours into basketball before I hit the part I don’t like.
Depending upon where you are in your own mental development when you hit that point, and how much enjoyment you get out of the parts you can do already, you may or may not have the gumption to get through the training part that you don’t like, and continue on.
Gumption is part (an important part) of it, but just as important is finding training methods that work for you. I’m sure we all knew people who worked very hard in school: asked lots of questions, took copious notes, spent long hours studying, and still didn’t do very well. They didn’t lack gumption, but they didn’t find a method of learning that would work for them.
By the way, I’m curious about your use of the word “gumption”. It’s an unusual one these days, and Pirsig uses it in the same context in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance .
True; that’s the mental development part.
I mean, shoot… Hannah has a better ear than Jack. But Jack is eight and Hannah is six and Jack will practice the piano even when he’d rather play with his Legos because he gets that practice is a few minutes and he can actually have fun figuring it out often enough that he’s into getting over the “I don’t wanna” hump.
Hannah is more like pulling teeth 🙂
And unfortunately your brain keeps mapping things internally until you’re in your twenties. I know that I read philosophy *a lot different* now than I did when I was in my late teens, and I read a decent amount of philosophy in my late teens. I still have problems with shedding my teenage irritation at Hume, for example.
Whaddyagonnado.
I am deeply, deeply in love with Hume. That pains me even to read.
You should have heard my old rants against Popper. They were practically incoherent.
Ooh, a philosopher who likes Hume. My favorite kind.
I am deeply, deeply in love with Hume.
That must be frustrating, since you can’t observe the reason for it.
There is a constant correlation between mental representations of Hume and the passion of love.
Truth be told, I find that distinction unsatisfying. If, over a period of time, you can make perfectly accurate predictions that A is followed by B, than in my book you’ve observed that A causes B, and this observation is as certain as any other. That is, you might be wrong, but you also might be wrong that something is orange if you’re viewing it at dusk.
I read Hume as not saying that there are no causes, but that what a cause is amounts to constant correlation. We have no epistemological access to any notion of cause beyond that. So when we say cause, we really just mean constant correlation.
That’s why I said “prediction”. It’s one thing to observe that a correlation has taken place in the past; it’s another to be able to predict, accurately, the conditions under which it will take place in the future. (The ability to predict things rather than merely describe them is, by the way, in my opinion the difference between things that are sciences, like physics, and the things that are not, like economics.)
IIRC (and I haven’t read this section of Hume in two years), I think he’d be okay with that with a caveat that there is an in-principle possibility that it might not come true, however remote. A la induction.
Some relevant bits from the Enquiry, emphasis mine: “As to past experience, it can be allowed to give direct and certain information of those precise objects only, and that precise period of time, which fell under its cognisance; but why this experience should be extended to future times, and to other objects, which for aught we know, may be only in appearance similar-this is the main question on which I would insist… These two propositions are far from being the same: I have found that such an object has always been attended with such an effect, and I foresee, that other objects, which are, in appearance, similar, will be attended with similar effects. I shall allow, if you please, that the one proposition may justly be inferred from the other; I know, in fact, that it always is inferred. But if you insist that the inference is made by a chain of reasoning, I desire you to produce that reasoning. The connection between these propositions is not intuitive….If we be, therefore, engaged by arguments to put trust in past experience, and make it the standard of our future judgement, these arguments must be probable only.”
This post dovetails so nicely with what I had been musing the other day, when I wrote my piece about attending teaching conferences.
I look back on my medical education and realize how immature and unready I was for so much of it. I was far too fixated on the social aspects of my life, and didn’t make anything like the best of my opportunities. I regret so much squandered time. The same conference that fills me with joy now merely felt like drudgery back when exposure to them was more routine (and required). In short, I wish I had learned to love medicine back when I was learning it the first time. I know I would be a much better doctor now if I had.
But it’s good to know there’s still time for me to be Bertrand Russell.
Also, kudos for another great post.
There’s a story I’ve heard about Leonardo da Vinci’s last words being something like “I was finally learning how to paint” which made for a wonderful and delightful story. In googling for confirmation, I instead found that his last words were “I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have.”
Which is much more depressing.
In any case, I’m going to say that the former gives us a poetic truth and that your comment there reminds me of that particular poetic truth.
Although maybe that belief is motivating? Where you always see how you can improve? Interestingly, experts did not enjoy practice. They often found it frustrating. It’s not really a matter of doing what you love,
Rose,
Several commenters have raised a point that I don’t think you address in your original post but don’t seem to have elaborated on yet to their (and my) satisfaction. It has to do with whether motivation and interest are attributes of what people mean by “talent.” It seems that those who suggest that “talent” is not innate are defining out of consideration that which might very well be “innate,” or so bound up with one’s personhood that it is hard for them not to “want” to pursue some callings in preference to others.
I’m also concerned about the exceptions that are being carved for physical attributes, such as having perfect pitch or having athletic ability. If someone is particularly prodigious at mathematics and it is eventually discovered that she was born with neurons configured in such a way as encourage such prodigiousness, might that be innate? I realize, of course, that I am not addressing the question of dedication to practice, which plays an important part in the (it’s not innate claim).
Finally, I think that the innate vs. not-innate might be the wrong question. (In fact, perhaps this is the point you are getting at, although if so, it’s not clear to me that you are.) Maybe the question “innateness” is focused too much on genetics and the unknown and perhaps unknowable chicken-and-eggsmanship, and the question ought to be one of disposition, however acquired (by genetics, by environmental factors attending one’s youth, by certain choices one makes that predisposes him or her down a certain pathway).
“have raised a point that I don’t think you address in your original post”
I meant “that I do think you address in your original post”: you do mention motivation and interest, and you suggest it could be inherited.
Right, so let me address this point specifically.
I went to a high school that was public, but very competitive (Westinghouse entries (it’s Intel now, right?), many went on to Ivy Leagues, etc.). People were very conscious of rank. There was one girl ranked third. Everyone said of her that she wasn’t really smart, she just worked hard. By contrast, I was a bit of a doofus in high school. People would say about me that I was really intelligent, but an underachiever. (She graduated from Princeton with a 3.9. I finally got my act together and did well at college, but it wasn’t until my mid-20s.)
People also watch their children and notice which skills they acquire early on and take that as evidence that their child has a special ability in that area. Again, nit an interest, but an ability. Schools look for gifted children, coaches look for gifted athletes, etc.
It’s this sort of view that I’m arguing against. That there are innate capacities or abilities that some people have over others that are independent of practice and interest or motivation and diligence.
I think that talent is indeed constituted not insignificantly by motivation to pursue it. And the part of talent that might well be innate is not capacity, but a) interest, and b) diligence. If a bunch of neurons at birth correlated very closely with eventual success in a domain, and it was somehow shown conclusively that this neuronal arrangement had nothing to do with either motivation/interest or diligence, then I would be happy to say there is such a thing as innate talent. Right now, there is no conclusive evidence that there are no innate abilities, just that there is no evidence that there are innate abilities.
I think talent should be less a matter of spotting innate abilities, but encouraging character traits of diligence.
The exceptions are not being carved for perfect pitch or athletic ability – only body size and height (and, for all I know, the proportion of fast-twitch to slow-twitch). Perfect pitch happens with practice, although it must occur at a certain age. Same with some aspects of athletic ability. There are critical periods during which the practice must occur or a talent cannot be had.
Thanks for the thoughtful response. I’ll have to mull it over.
I do have an additional question about this statement: “Right now, there is no conclusive evidence that there are no innate abilities, just that there is no evidence that there are innate abilities.”
This is the second time (the first was in your post) where you’ve said “there is no evidence that there are innate abilities.” Did you just mean to carry over the “no conclusive evidence” from the first part of your statement? Or do you mean that there is really absolutely no evidence to support the proposition of innate abilities? (I ask because you repeated the phrasing. When I read it in your original post, I took it only as hyperbole.)
No, I mean there really is no good reason to think there is. For me to say there ARE innate abilities, I would want conclusive evidence. For me to say there MIGHT BE, I would want plausible evidence.
Right now, I don’t see any case where innate abilities are any more plausible an explanation than motivation/diligence/practice.
Rose,
how does someone tell you that they are unable to add 9+6? Despite years upon years of practice?
Why?
Because they put nine pebbles in their head, and then six pebbles, and by the time they get half of the six into the nine, they’ve plumb lost count!
“I think talent should be less a matter of spotting innate abilities, but encouraging character traits of diligence.”
With this, I am in complete agreement. Even if we were to learn that most of us weren’t born to be LeBron James and will never be capable of what he is, there is no reason we can’t work hard and be Kobe Bryant (bwahahahaha).
Rose,
Okay, yet another thing to pop your bubble. Because I think it is a bubble, and it ought to do what bubbles should do — coat reality in shiny rainbows!
A friend of mine slept through Spanish class in high school. Judging from when he is speaking it — and the reactions of native speakers with whom he conducts conversations, he speaks it quite fluently.
Yet, he can’t translate, even when he just said something. In fact, if you asked him what he last said in English, he’d say “I dunno.”
It may help to know someone with extreme learning disabilities, but I’m fairly certain that if you tried to teach him phonics, it wouldn’t take. He reads an entire page at once, and reading smaller sections means a less accurate understanding.
Perhaps you could say “well, he spent a lot of time practicing reading” — and while that’s TRUE, it doesn’t explain at all why he can’t read like NORMAL people do. Despite MORE time practicing that.
Your theory does not account for someone working really hard — and still failing algebra. Four consecutive times. And after the fourth time, scoring in the top 3 in a physics competition, thus enabling him to graduate from high school.
As I’m sure you are aware, I do know someone with extreme learning disabilities. The studies specifically don’t include people with chromosomal rearrangements, etc. If you mean dyslexia-type learning disabilities, that’s a different matter.
About your anecdotes, it seems just as plausible (take the algebra case) that someone either practiced incorrectly (i.e., studied the wrong thing, read without practicing, studied in a group, used poor study methods, or did not push quite hard enough against the upper limits of their abilities) or else that they, at one point or another, had failed to practice some of the prerequisite needed for algebra. (This might be the case in dyslexia, or else something did or did not happen at a critical window.) Also, motivation for an A may not be as motivating to really push oneself as motivation to master.
If there is a case (not just anecdotal) where it can be demonstrated that a truly more plausible explanation for the phenomena is innate abilities rather than innate motivation or rather than study methods, I would gladly concede the point. I don,t see that in your examples. In any case, it remains interesting to consider that innate abilities, even if they do exist, are FAR less important than we thought.
(my awareness of whether your child is diagnosed with learning disabilities, is poor, and I meant no insult. as far as I understand, (quoting from wikipedia) “A person’s IQ must be average or above to have a learning disability or learning disorder.”)
Oh, so basically they’re saying “okay, we know why these particular people are fucked up, so let’s exclude them.” Seems fair.
I find it extremely improbable, knowing the person, that he studied the wrong thing, read without practicing (insofar as he was able), or did not push quite hard enough.
But, okay, let’s take something simpler:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dysgraphia
See cite 5. (the person I know with dysgraphia actually doesn’t fall into any of those categories, surprisingly enough. it’s a “symbols” issue, where he literally “paints” a letter that he has to picture in his mind, rather than an approximation that someone else might read as the letter, which is what I tend to do.).
I dunno, it seems to me like taking learning disabilities out of the picture is really “cheating.” If one can have deficiencies but never talents… well, I don’t think that makes much sense. The example I cited above, about Tori Amos — does that count as a learning disability, just a rather rarely diagnosed one?
LD can be used either way. Many people call the people formerly known as having mental retardation as LD. I think especially in England.
The only exclusions were people with a demonstrable issue – chromosome rearrangement, birth defect, brain injury. Not just LD in your sense.
There are anecdotes. But there is no study that shows that someone is either lagging or ahead in a domain which actually excludes the other possibilities, e.g. A critical window for learning a prerequisite skill was missed, or observed practice methods.
I was using LD in the narrow sense, and am now flailing quite ungainly around for a word that would express that in a more economical fashion than quoting the wikipedia page. grumph.
what concerns me is that someone who is given ample time to spend studying something is apt to derive or attain knowledge that will allow them to “bridge” their own talents into someplace where they are not terribly talented (aformentioned “aced physics while failing algebra”).
Example: Someone with a perfect auditory memory may be able to overcome an extreme deficiency in reading notes (does that fall under dyslexia?). But the fact that they’re a competent musician does not explore the fact that they are both highly deficient in ordinary musical aptitude, and highly talented at a rare music aptitude.
“Learning disabilities” changes meaning, depending on which side of the Atlantic you are on.
In the UK, “learning disability” refers to a person with limited cognitive ability, what in the US is now called “intellectual disability”. In the US, “learning disability” refers to a condition in which specific aspects of learning are unexpectedly difficult, given the person’s age, measured intelligence, and age-appropriate education.
I am a native of the US. The two difference senses of the phrase really confused me when I started studying dyslexia, as some of the UK publications talked about how a person with a learning disability couldn’t be diagnosed with dyslexia.
In terms of the US sense of learning disabilities the federal definition (through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) specifically rules out “learning problems that are primarily the result of visual, hearing, or motor disabilities, of mental retardation, of emotional disturbance, or of environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage.”
Kimmi, most of the reading research I have found specifically state that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to teach reading to people whose measured IQs are 60 or below; some dyslexia remediation programs exclude folks whose measured IQ is less that 70.
I would also suggest, Kimmi, that you not use wikipedia as a source for things as subtle and nuanced as learning disabilities, but go to more referenced sites, such as the National Dissemination Center for Children With Disabilities, http://nichcy.org/, the National Center for Learning Disabilities http://www.ncld.org/ or LDOnline, http://www.ldonline.org/.
shit. no wonder they wanted to write about my friend. his IQ is literally in the idiot range. needless to say, he can read and (with a computer) write better than most college grads.
Kimmi, use of “idiot” to mean what you mean is totally unacceptable. Moreover, given that what used to be called “idiocy” would indicate severe/profound mental retardation, i.e., inability to form sentences of more than 3 or 4 words and inability to engage in self care, I seriously doubt your friend would qualify as “literally in the idiot range.”
technical term used technically. I retain the similar right to use bitch in the female dog sense.
(will respond to rest of this later)
Kimmi, the term “idiot” to refer to a person’s measured IQ or functioning level hasn’t been used in decades, and is widely thought to be offensive. Perhaps you should educate yourself so that you don’t continue to give offense.
Most people with learning disabilities and/or ADHD have areas of strengths as well as weaknesses. In fact, variations in IQ subscales of more than 1 standard deviation is a hallmark of learning disability. For some, the subscale weaknesses radically affect the overall score.
With respect to autism, at least one study has found that conventional, language-based IQ tests (like the Weschler) can profoundly underestimate an autistic person’s IQ.
Kimmi, “bitch” is an insult in virtue of comparing someone to a dog. “Idiot” is an insult in virtue of comparing someone to another person. They are not comparable. I don’t mind it in the context of just meaning someone of whom one disapproves if it’s being used in its dead metaphor sense. But I do very much mind its use applied to disabled people.
You can demand the right to use it all you want, but not on this blog. Given that what you say could not possibly be true (the word used to apply only to those with the most severe/profound disability – the large majority of people with Down Syndrome would have IQs to high to qualify), I don’t think it’s that much of a loss.
Rose,
Well, you can say “this is impossible” all you want, but someone like that does exist. I’m not ruling out the possibility that the test just had “endpoint issues” (aka if you can’t even score 1 on certain subtests…).
http://www.iupui.edu/~flip/wechsler.html
So, which tests am I talking about “zeroing”?
Nonexistent auditory/verbal working memory (kills 5 & 7 & 8), combined with severe motor coordination issues (affecting writing and reactions), combined with an utter inability to judge relative directions (left to right, in this case — doesn’t kill, but affects most of the non-verbal tasks), combined with dyscalcula, which affects some of the numeric processing, and nonexistent temporal memory(remembers life as pictures, and can’t distinguish which one comes first, without a lot of visual analysis)– may or may not nix 11.
Meh, he’s always put it as “the harder the problem, the easier time I have solving it.”
It is impossible analytically, not synthetically. If you can read and speak in full sentences and walk and live even semi-independently, you DO NOT have an IQ below 34. Even if you can do NOTHING else. By definition.
Rose,
are you simply saying that the IQ test under consideration is wrong? Because that is practically the definition of “learning disabilities” as I was using it earlier. People with high performance assets, and major deficits. They really screw with “IQ as a good measure” of anything.
If you told this guy to close his eyes, and walk straight ahead, in all likelihood, he’d fall over.
Given the importance of both heritable temperament and early childhood practice, I’m not sure how much of a PRACTICAL difference this makes, at least as adults (I can certainly see implications for raising and educating children).
You seem to be conflating heritability and innateness. The two are not the same. Besides genetics, there are other prenatal factors that influence how a person turns out, including diet and hormones.
And beyond these, there is a real sense in which some things are not clearly the result of genetics, other innate characteristics, or effort. Mozart and Bobby Fischer are both inexplicable otherwise. Plenty of kids are obsessed with music or chess. Not all of them are world-class at age 14, and we have no good explanation for how they got that way.
Yes, I am conflating them, but there’s no evidence for either. Again, I don’t mean to say I think it is ruled out by any means.
The article addresses the specifics of both Mozart and Bobby Fischer. Long story short: both practiced for a long time, and neither was a master before practice. (And apparently, musical prodigies today outstrip Mozart’s abilities at the same age.)
But that’s just the problem. A lot of people practice like Mozart or Fischer, but they don’t end up like them. I’m not prepared at all to say that Joshua Waitzkin wasn’t the next Fischer simply because he didn’t work hard enough. He tried like all hell, and he ended up a master, but he didn’t become a world championship contender, much less the strongest world champion ever seen.
Right, so we all know anecdotes like that, but there is actually no evidence that two people who verifiably practiced the same amount of time in the same way end up in different places. When people at the same level of mastery are given the same instruction and told how long to practice and in what way, they progress similarly.
Then let’s look at something that comes easily to most people. I think it’s easier to come up with “talents” if you’re looking at “but but but I practiced for ages and I still stink at it!” — aka let’s look at deficiencies and extrapolate.
Note that your study emphatically does not cover this case, as it willfully decided not to look at people of average achievement, who put in loads of practice. In that way, it seems remarkably teleological.
So, anyway, back to what I was saying. Take Walking for example. Or Typing. If we can look at pronounced sensori-motor deficits, and say “you’ll never be able to be a fantastic walker, or typer”, then we’ve got evidence that most people have a reasonable talent for it.
Note: I dont’ believe most sensori-motor deficits can be explained at this time with genes. This is a belief, and if you find a study, i’ll gladly cave.
Rose,
It might be very difficult to have enough of controlled experiment to offer evidence in that sense. However, perhaps I’m being unimaginative.
It may just be “anecdote,” but it still strikes me as “evidence,” even though it’s difficult to generalize from this evidence. That’s why I intimated in one of my comments above that it’s a bit too strident to suggest that there’s “no evidence” for innate talents.
I’m surprised at myself for being so skeptical. I would like to disbelieve the notion that (most) talents are innate. Yet I resist.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/files/u81/Response_to_Commentaries.pdf
Okay, author backhandedly agrees with me.
Innate talents, at least according to him, are about small scale things: “working memory”, “numeric fluentness” “ability to read notes on a page”
What he’s saying is that with enough practice, people evolve ways to get around deficiencies and use their strengths. Plausible to probable.
I’m noting an overreliance on chess, which is basically a memorization game. I wouldn’t look for innate talent in chess, as large increases in chunking are one of the Easiest Things for a “practice model” to support.
I’d rather we look at Actual Innate Talents: like the ability to maneuver in three dimensions, or particularly good depth perception. These are highly heritable things, on a population basis (thank the military for those studies).
Other things aren’t innate — understanding inertia on an intuitive basis is something highly trainable.
Hmm… I think this author is being somewhat willfully ignorant. By restricting his case to “expert performers” he has actually ruled out a quite plausible scenario:
All of those people who do not have “talents” or at the very least “average/above average” skills needed for a certain domain, do not actually show up in his studies.
I think an analysis of talent might make sense, if he was saying, “okay, what makes an expert in arithmetic better than otehr people”
also, your cocktail party friend failed to note that this is not settled research, as shown by the hornets nest of people responding to the original article.
This post may well have the highest proportion of “what the hell are you talking about?’ comment moments of any post I’ve read on the League.
There’s a certain innate talent required to understand them…
In general, I endeavor to keep my interpretations of Hume separate from those of what constitutes idiocy in the 19th c. sense of the word. But this thread literally has a certain je ne sais quoi.