Matus1976

For starters, the kid isn’t all that bright, “Today, I am very much happy to have an opportunity to serve the poor community” But seriously, did any of you even read the posts about this kid? Additionally, Einstein never took an IQ test, so any comparisons to him based on that are immediately suspect (thanks to Ellen for emphasizing that point) The articles quoted by Angie say: As per usual, expertise requires extensive practice, surgery, as any surgeon will tell you, is not different. I just finished reading “Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science” and the author, a surgeon, spent a chapter talking about how great surgeons are made through practice. Undertaking that practice during your developmental years will work to mold your mind and body into one being more amenable to that task. So where is the “Innate Talent” in this kid, was he born with the knowledge of surgery? No, he became obsessed with medicine at an early age and memorized medical text books, watched videos, and PRACTICED on animals. (how many? 1? 10? 100? 1000's?) “But Akrit did begin to treat some of the hordes who gathered on his doorstep.. He consulted his textbooks, discussed the cases with established doctors and prescribed medicine for more than a thousand people” In a poor village in India? Prescribing all kinds of snake oil would be considering equally medicinally fascinating. Even so, where is the “natural talent” he consulted his textbooks and discussed cases with established doctors. One can easily understand how such a self re-inforcing effect could rapidly build up his experience to such an extent that he becomes an expert at a young age, something that probably started with him reciting some things he learned when he was even younger from obsessing over medical text books. Seeing thousands of patients in a poor villiage could certainly constitute a great deal of practice, which is always necessary for becoming an expert or genius at something. Well at least here is another advocate of the “innate talent” theory. Encouraged him? That deserves some investigation. Isolation is certainly conducive to intensive study and practice. His father left the home and told his son not to get in touch with him UNTIL HE HAS DISCOVERED A CURE FOR CANCER. Yeah, that’s NOT PRESSURE at all. No doubt… From the ‘Child Surgeon’ link Ha ha, well that must have been about 100 million IQ tests, who did those tests? Chose not to give him a final rating. CHOSE NOT TO GIVE HIM A FINAL RATING? I suggest reading the third article Angie posted carefully http://www.tribuneindia.com/2004/20040828/saturday/main1.htm Of note: I had a laugh at this: Raw golf ability? Is there a gene for that? If not for his fathers early detection? His father had Tiger playing golf practically before he could walk. A laboratory his parents setup for him. I hardly see this kids case as a overwhelmingly unquestionable proof of massive ‘innate talent’ it’s clear that this child is intelligent, and perhaps his ability to memorize is better than average, or even significantly better, or perhaps its significantly better because he started trying to memorize things at a very young age. Additionally it’s likely that the media has over blown the capabilities of this boy, and it is also possible that his altruistic mother, spotting early ability in him, pressures him into focusing his life on serving her altruistic whims, and his father left him and will not return until the poor child comes up with a cure for cancer, thats horrible. I think Paul’s comment is one of the most sensible yet made, but deciphering how much of that ‘develop skills faster’ comes from exhausting practice and how much from easily picking up a complex subject with little effort is something more often lost in our worshiping of innate talent.- Michael

lol, I had a good laugh at that, having a 'list' myself.

I thought so on that one. What's being talked about in the wikipedia source -- and I'd expect in the other sources he's seen as well -- is the issue of racial differences: Ellen, the next sentence is "Two random humans are expected to differ at approximately 1 in 1000 nucleotides, whereas two random chimpanzees differ at 1 in 500 nucleotide pairs." That is certainly not a discussion confined to RACIAL differences, even so, When was it determined that RACE was not a part of genetic variation? Is there some new means of heredity recently discovered that is transferred outside of the genome? I must have missed the Nobel prize handed out for that one. Any discussion of racial differences is inherently a discussion of genetic differences. It's just that race is the genetic difference most people concern themselves with, and not morphological differences in stomachs and pancreases. Never the less, of the nucleotides which direct the growth and development of a stomach, or a human brain, only 1 in 1,000 are different between any two random humans, which means humans tend to differ by about .1%. Given that most of our DNA is junk DNA, the actual percentage difference is even less. My point being, of course, is that there is not a lot of room in this small variation for huge innate talents to hide.

The small range of intraspecies variability in racial characteristics amongst humans as compared to many other mammalian species says nothing about the possible range of individual variance at birth in human brains. But it does speak to the idea that the total amount of human variation is extremely limited, which is the point I was making all along. Referencing in comparison to other species was only to convey an understanding about the extent of the genetic variation present in humans, not as proof their brains don't differ. I am pretty confident that you know exactly what I meant and why I quoted that. If you have something productive to contribute please do, like what IS the human genetic variation available in human brains? WHAT DOES THE CURVE LOOK LIKE? Do you have any INFORMATION to contribute, or do you seek only to attack me and twist my comments? What ARE the morphological differences in stomachs and pancreases, what is the average genetic difference between them? How about some INFORMATION.

Victor said, and MSK expressed similar sentiment: “But human beings are obviously not born identical: they have different colored hair, eyes and skin, different facial shapes, different hereditary health problems, some are left-handed or right-handed,etc. Is it unreasonable to suspect our brains might be different--and that the differences aren't limited to IQ? Do we not observe that some kids are simply smarter than others --and more talented--and that it isn't always possible to explain these behaviors as a product of "experience" or "conceptual effort"?” No, obviously they are not identical, but by what logic do you presume that the same amount of variation that exists in height, skin color, etc, exists for individual organs? Are stomachs from one person genetically that much different from stomachs of another? Spleens? Pancreases? Surely variations exist, but is the percentage of genetic variation as extreme as that which we see in height and skin color? In fact these physical differentiations of body height, skin color, etc, are extremely superificial and are usually related to specific selection advantages in particular climates, tall thin bodies for hot areas, short round bodies for colder climates, epicanthic folds for wind swept regions, etc. etc. Do you think that if you graphed the genetic distribution of height across the population that the graph for intelligence capacity and innate talent would be identical? By what knowledge do you have that you make this presumption? For all you know, the graph could show 1/10 the distribution, or 1/100th. The fact is neither of you know the extent of genetic nueral differences, you have a few stories about ‘gifted’ children, see some short people and some tall people, and extrapolate that as proof that a huge variation of mental capacity exists. It is not logical. Given the fact that virtually anyone can be made to be great or even excellent at virtually anything (I still have heard anyone explain how a father raised 3 chess grandmasters out of his daughters) it’s clear evidence that minds differ from one another to such a limited extent that while it may prevent you from being the greatest ever of all humans who have ever existed in a particular field, it presents no obstacles to becoming good or great at whatever it is you want to do. Additionally, comparisons between normal physical distributions like height are extremely inaccurate when applied to the brain because people have little ability to affect the structure of their body but an immense amount of capacity to alter their own brain. It would be similar if in routine stretching exercises one could make themselves taller or in squatting exercises fatter, or in long term endurance muscular training convert fast twitch muscle fiber to slow twitch. But they can not (aside from a very limited effect you can have during critical developmental years in childhood) The brain modifies itself with every single new idea and thought you have, new concept you form. And every idea and concept makes learning more easier. As for the questions on Human Genetic Variation, I have read a similar comment in different biology and science books, but Wikipedia has some references to it as well Human genetic variation – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_genetic_variation First, compared with many other mammalian species, humans are genetically less diverse—a counterintuitive finding, given our large population and worldwide distribution (Li and Sadler 1991; Kaessmann et al. 2001). For example, the chimpanzee subspecies living just in central and western Africa have higher levels of diversity than do humans (Ebersberger et al. 2002; Yu et al. 2003; Fischer et al. 2004). Googling ‘gifted children’ means nothing, as young children who work hard at something they are interested in are always ‘gifted’ in that something, regardless of any alleged ‘innate’ talent. That ‘gifted children’ exist is certainly not any kind of refutation on my position and that you think it is indicates you seriously misunderstand virtually everything I have been saying. Absolutely nothing about my position precludes intelligent children doing amazing things. The difference is you attribute it to some mystical genetic gift, of which there is no evidence to suggest it exists, and I attribute it to the actions and interests of the child. I have said repeatedly not that there is no differences between people, but that those differences are so minimal as to hardly be worth considering. Thus your ‘logical conclusion’ that I said “there are not innate differences, thus everyone is identical” is, at least, very disingenuous interpretation of what I was saying, and at worst just plain dishonest. In post #28, I said “It is only your maximum potential and maximum capacity that is limited by any innate talent” In post #31 I said “it could very well be that you might be a much much better violinist than Yo Yo Ma but you'd never know because you never picked up a violon to find out, let alone spent 100,000 hours perfecting your ability to play it” In post #35 I said “My point is, it really doesn’t matter, if ‘natural’ talent plays a role, the major role it plays is defining your ultimate limit,” And “If there is an influence of ‘innate’ talent, it is extremely difficult to identify and would come from a complex interplay of many different genes. You would hardly be able to decipher its influence until you learn what your ultimate limitation was” In post #37 I said “the ‘natural talent’ myth when hard science shows it, at most, barely relevant.” In post #43 I said “Abolishing the 'natural talent' myth (which, again, the scientific evidence suggests has very little effect if any) simple means that people will again understand the magnitude of their own potential.” In post #104 I said “it is very clear, scientifically, and of course subsequently very true, that innate talent plays a marginal and barely detectable role in emergence of geniuses or people who are great in their field” In post #113 I said “I am talking about the plethora of large scale studies proving that innate talent has little to nothing to do with genius and great masters” In post #119 I said “Then I will provide my best succinct answer. People do have variations in their inherent capacity and genetic variations making them slightly better at one thing or another, but the difference is minimal as there is little actual genetic variation throughout the entire human species (less than any other species) The differences attained from ‘innate’ talent come into play only ultimately as limiting factors (oxygen absorption rates in endurance athletes for instance) but the vast and overwhelming majority of people never reach anywhere near their genetically predefined limiting potential so it is useless to even consider it in evaluating what one wants to do.” In post #130 I said “And with the previous plethora of evidence showing the massive capacity and plasticity of a human brain and how utilizing it requires a massive amount of effort and hard work, it seems pretty reasonable to consider any kind of innate talent barely relevant if not a complete outright myth.” And then, after all that, MSK says (in post #150) “But let us grant your premise, that all infants are born biologically equal in mental capacity” !!!!!!!!!!! Is it in wonder that this conversation is aggravating to me? I have said, in almost every single one of my posts, something that acknowledged that innate talent may exist, but emphasizes if it does it is extremely limited in effect, is greatly overshadowed by actual hard work and effort, and probably only really manifests itself as an ultimate limitation. Yet Both MSK and Victor turn around and assert that I am promulgating some communist egalitatarian utopia. ------- Scientific American “The Expert Mind” http://scientificamerican.com/print_versio...F9E83414B7F4945 “Yet this belief in the importance of innate talent, strongest perhaps among the experts themselves and their trainers, is strangely lacking in hard evidence to substantiate it.” “The preponderance of psychological evidence indicates that experts are made, not born. What is more, the demonstrated ability to turn a child quickly into an expert--in chess, music and a host of other subjects--sets a clear challenge before the school” What it takes to be great Research now shows that the lack of natural talent is irrelevant to great success. The secret? Painful and demanding practice and hard work http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/for...91794/index.htm Of note “Scientific experts are producing remarkably consistent findings across a wide array of fields. Understand that talent doesn't mean intelligence, motivation or personality traits. It's an innate ability to do some specific activity especially well. British-based researchers Michael J. Howe, Jane W. Davidson and John A. Sluboda conclude in an extensive study, "The evidence we have surveyed ... does not support the [notion that] excelling is a consequence of possessing innate gifts." The Myth of Prodigy and Why it Matters http://www.psychologicalscience.org/observ...cle.cfm?id=2026 The other way to look at precocity is of course to work backward — to look at adult geniuses and see what they were like as kids. A number of studies have taken this approach, Gladwell said, and they find a similar pattern. A study of 200 highly accomplished adults found that just 34 percent had been considered in any way precocious as children. He also read a long list of historical geniuses who had been notably undistinguished as children — a list including Copernicus, Rembrandt, Bach, Newton, Beethoven, Kant, and Leonardo Da Vinci (“that famous code-maker”). “None of [them] would have made it into Hunter College,” Gladwell observed.

Speaking of incorrectly attributing positions to someone, I have never once stated, as my premise, that 'all humans are created equally' Michael and Victor, that is not my premise at all. I have never stated that each and every human being is perfectly identical in every way, form, and capacity. Despite your suggestions to the contrary and Victors continual parallels to Marxist utopian ideals, that is not my claim. I have stated repeatedly that 1) the human genetic variation is limited, is in fact the most limited of all species on this planet 2) any genetic contribution to overall talent almost always rears itself as an ultimate limiting force, i.e. the ability for your blood to absorb oxygen or the percentage of fast twitch to slow twitch muscle fibers, etc. 3) The vast majority of great achievers became so only after decades of long, hard, strenuous work. 4) child prodigies are more often than not the result of an emotionally or physically abusive upbringing which forces a child to partake in activities from a very young age that gives them a significant head start over the rest of humanity. Additionally, the main point I am discussing this is because as an individual, it really is completely irrelevant how much of someone’s ability comes from ‘innate talent’ and ‘hard work’. It is irrelevant because 1) the actual practical effect of any innate ability is extremely limited and is almost entirely confined to limiting your ultimate maximal potential instead of giving you a fundamental neurophysiological advantage over ‘normal’ folk and 2) it serves to psychologically artificially shackle ones own perception of their self perceived abilities and 3) it doesn’t really matter because virtually all people can become good or excellent at virtually anything they decide they want to be good or excellent at. With that, I believe I will have to bow out of this conversation now because I don't feel it can progress any more. If you guys want to forge your own chains, I can't stop you, I only find it sad and disheartening and would additionally do what I can from preventing these scientifically innacurate concepts from being propogated to the masses, breeding hopelessness and laziness.

I am not an expert on music and it wasnt until I read into the subject that I even understood the distinction, but it is an excellent point to be reminded of. Presuming 'perfect pitch' is an innate talent (which my previous quote from Wiki suggests is still hotly debated among scientists) it certainly is not necessary to have it to be a musical genuis, as that same wikipedia article points out, many musical greats did not have 'perfect pitch' It is seems that almost everyone asserts that relative pitch can be developed and learned by virtually anyone who isnt outright deaf, and in that vein even deaf people may be able to develop it with practice as the other article I posted shows the same part of the brain is used to process kinesthetically sensed vibrations in deaf people as auditory ones in hearing abled people.

Victor, maybe before asking such a question you should actually find out what happened to Duncan. How long was he your student, a few months? So because in a few months of trying he did not become a good artist you extrapolate that out to a lifetime of failure? I tried for months to cut 1/4" steel with an oxyacetelene torch before finally one day I was able to do it with great profeiciency. Additionaly, why is it that I am on the defensive? How is it that I account for Duncan? How is it that you account for the plethora of people referenced in those articles I posted, which both referenced large studies themselves, of experts and genuises being made, and not born. How do you account for the Father who made 3 chess grandmasters out of his 3 daughters? Did all three just happen to have been born with that 'gift'? I keep referencing large empirical studies, all I am getting from you and MSK are appeals to personal anecdotes. It seems you have a lot more work to do to prove that innate talent is a fundamental component of becoming an expert or genuis at something for your position to be rationally accepted as an accurate description of reality, given the overwhelming majority of experts and genuises came to their abilities through immense hard work over a great deal of time. I could not ever make any rational guesses as to the cuase of Duncan's inability or implied perpetual failure nor of Brad's amazing ability at a young age without a full psyhological profile and history of each person. Maybe Brad was beaten by his step dad and was called a fag by neighborhood kids for wanting to be 'an artist' Maybe he enjoyed and developed some other skill that had a direct impact on being able to draw well, developing in representative spatial relationship skill and hand eye coordination skill will help in learning to draw. Maybe his mother was trying to force him to become an artist and he actually hated doing it (as is often the case with child prodigies) Michael

MSK I hardly think you are making a strong case for ‘innate’ talents here Michael. If someone can hear, yes, they have an ‘innate’ talent over someone who is deaf when it comes to making music. But even so, deaf people can still create and enjoy music, everyone is well aware that Beethoven did many compositions after he lost his hearing, but having spent most of his life composing music he probably had rich memories of sounds to help him along. But deaf people’s brains still re-work themselves in order to understand and sense music. Remember the brain is extremely plastic and adaptable. See for example: Brains of deaf people rewire to hear music http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/200...w-bod111901.php "These findings suggest that the experience deaf people have when feeling music is similar to the experience other people have when hearing music. The perception of the musical vibrations by the deaf is likely every bit as real as the equivalent sounds, since they are ultimately processed in the same part of the brain," says Dr. Dean Shibata, assistant professor of radiology at the University of Washington. Shibata presented his findings at the 87th Scientific Assembly and Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA) here the week of Nov. 26. "The brain is incredibly adaptable. In someone who is deaf, the young brain takes advantage of valuable real estate in the brain by processing vibrations in the part of the brain that would otherwise be used to process sound," Shibata says. [an fMRI showed] Both groups brain activity in the part of the brain that normally processes vibrations. But in addition, the deaf students showed brain activity in a golf ball-sized area, the auditory cortex, otherwise usually only active during auditory stimulation. The people with normal hearing did not show such brain activity.” Nobody here is disputing the blind and deaf people have disadvantages over those able to see and hear, but an ‘innate’ talent would be, say for example, being born with ‘perfect pitch’ And if tone deafness was such a strong reality, how is it that languages heavily dependant on tones have no tone deaf people? Have you ever tried to speak Vietnamese? I have spent the last few months learning it and it is a language heavily dependant on tones, the same word uttered at a different pitch means something entirely different. The same word with a high, rising tone, means something different than the same word with a high, then falling tone. The same word spoken at a mid tone means something different than another word spoken at a low tone. If someone was tone deaf and lived in Vietnam or China, they would not be able to communicate or speak. Do you think there are a significant number of people in these nations that are capable of hearing, but can not speak or understand their own spoken language? Perhaps they had more difficulty at first learning it, but the simple fact is that tone deafness is virtually non-existent in these places. But the major point is that Tone Deafness is irrelevant to this discussion, since it is the wrong side of the distribution, it is arguing about the existing of a limitation below that of the norm, not an advantage over the majority. I hardly think not being deaf is what we are considering to have as ‘innate talent’ in the context of this discussion, since the normal typical state of all humans is that of being able to hear, having that ability should not be considered an ‘innate talent’ over average people any more than being able to see should be considered an innate talent over being blind. In the clear context of this discussion, an innate talent is an advantage over average or typical people, not the state of average or typical people over physiologically deformed ones. In that regard, the Wikipedia entry (with citations) on “Perfect Pitch” or “Absolute Pitch” is interesting “Many people have believed that musical ability itself is an inborn talent[18]. Some scientists currently believe absolute pitch may have an underlying genetic basis and are trying to locate genetic correlates[19]; most believe that the acquisition of absolute pitch requires early training during a critical period of development, regardless of whether or not a genetic predisposition toward development exists or not[20]. The "unlearning theory," first proposed by Abraham[21], has recently been revived by developmental psychologists who argue that every person possesses absolute pitch (as a mode of perceptual processing) when they are infants, but that a shift in cognitive processing styles (from local, absolute processing to global, relational processing) causes most people to unlearn it; or, at least, causes children with musical training to discard absolute pitch as they learn to identify musical intervals [22].” So is perfect pitch something everyone has, but we unlearn it? Is it something a rare few are gifted with at birth? Is it something anyone can develop if they have a normal healthy mind and undertake the right excursive at the right time? Or can anyone, with enough practice, learn to recognize pitches without reference? Looks like the science is still up in there air, but being such an accomplished composer no doubt you have a definitive answer derived from anecdotal personal experience? Perhaps you should submit the personal stories you might have of amazing toddlers born with perfect pitch to a peer reviewed journal, it might settle the question once and for all! Until then, it is absolutely clear, scientifically, that you can not rationally and logically assert with confidence that perfect pitch is an inborn or innate talent, can you? And with the previous plethora of evidence showing the massive capacity and plasticity of a human brain and how utilizing it requires a massive amount of effort and hard work, it seems pretty reasonable to consider any kind of innate talent barely relevent if not a complete outright myth. Michael F Dickey

Then I will provide my best succinct answer. People do have variations in their inherent capacity and genetic variations making them slightly better at one thing or another, but the difference is minimal as there is little actual genetic variation throughout the entire human species (less than any other species) The differences attained from ‘innate’ talent come into play only ultimately as limiting factors (oxygen absorption rates in endurance athletes for instance) but the vast and overwhelming majority of people never reach anywhere near their genetically predefined limiting potential so it is useless to even consider it in evaluating what one wants to do. The overwhelming scientific evidence shows beyond any reasonable doubt that *all* genius and greatness has come at a tremendous expense of hard work and effort (a particular kind of effort which requires one to keep pushing themselves past existing limits) and that virtually anyone can become good or even great (though perhaps not the absolute best) at anything they put it in their mind to do. Believing anything else goes against the overwhelming evidence and cheats one's self of their own potential.

"Tone Deaf" is a vague and virtually meaningless word. What do you think it means? The inability to distinguish individual tones? The inability to identify the same tone repeatedly? The inability to break many tones into it's component tones? Many people suggest being Tone Deaf is just another myth. Sounds to me like it is as absurd as being "Art Blind" from - http://www.musicianshotline.com/education/...eartraining.asp "Tone Deafness – Largely a Myth Occasionally musicians worry whether they could be “color deaf,” and therefore unable to develop perfect pitch. True tone deafness is largely a myth - most people are so labeled when they cannot vocally match a pitch; this is more often due to vocal problems, and is not a firm indicator of tone deafness. A person who is truly tone deaf will reveal it in his or her speech - a monotone or very narrow range of speaking pitch can indicate a lack of pitch awareness. When the ear becomes cultured through repeated effortless listening, it will naturally bring forth its own absolute pitch perception which is already waiting deep inside. It is very important for parents to understand that it just takes a little time daily for their children to develop perfect pitch, and the time invested will pay high dividends for a long time to come. It can make the difference between having an open ear and therefore greater accomplishments, or a life-long struggle to make up for what should have been a natural, established, perception.When a child’s ears are opened, they are opened for life." DAVID BURGE... is the author of two number-one best-selling ear training courses. Over 25 years ago he was the first to successfully explain the mysteries behind perfect pitch and how almost anyone can acquire it. " Or try "The Myth of "Perfect Pitch"..... and How to Get "It" by Kirk Whipple" http://www.unconservatory.org/perfect_pitch/1.html "This series of articles is being offered with two goals in mind: first, to prove that what is commonly and mistakenly referred to as "perfect pitch" is actually a widely learnable skill, and second, to show that it is only one of many useful musical skills to be learned and applied. The claims in these articles are based entirely upon my personal experience and first hand accounts by friends, family and colleagues. I will not confirm or deny the veracity of any specific study. I will present a concise methodology of how to develop this "elusive talent" and suggest that studies which presume "perfect pitch" to be a "rare gift" are innately flawed."

MSK, I am not talking about the hour numbers I suggest, I am talking about the plethora of large scale studies proving that innate talent has little to nothing to do with genius and great masters. The numbers are large scale averages taken across many different fields, and of course the term 'expert' is subject to a necessary clearer definition as well. But none of that changes the fact that is proved from this plethora of studies that the vast majority of people can to just about anything if they put a lot of hours and effort into it. The idea of a child coming out of nowhere and instantly being good with virtually no practice and training at something is a complete and outright fantasy. Expertise and mastery does not spring from heads fully formed like Athena, they grow, mature, develop. They require many many years of unceasing hardwork, and the earliest this work is started, the easier it is. I do not understand why so many people here are having such a hard time accepting the fact that they are capable of amazing things if they saw fit to put the time and effort into those things. I understand why most other people are, they do not want to be held accountable for their own potential, it's far easier to not think, to sit and not change, not grow, and not challenge oneself and feel completely morally sound about it by convincing oneself that they couldn’t do anything more anyway. But the shear reluctance of this idea, and idea backed very clearly by *a lot* of scientific evidence, including large scale independently verified studies, to be accepted by a group of people that are allegedly rational and logical, surprises me.

Rich, by what standard are basing your skepticism on? Do you have *any* objective evidence suggesting that a huge variation exists in innate intelligence or natural talent that means hardly anyone can do hardly anything unless they have these special gifts? Are you a geneticist? Do you know of the related genes involved in, say, being a good artist? You are being just as 'snotty assed' prancing around with your innuendos that I am a Randroid because, god forbid, I use the 'evasion' term. **You are ignoring a fundamental aspect of reality that is empirically verified in large duplicated studies** That is anti scientific and dishonest. What else would you call that but evasion? Do you just 'feel' 'intuitively' that these data are incorrect? Or do you just pick and choose implications of reality to suit your fancy? Sorry, but the scientific evidence is unequivocable clear, you are capable of great things if you put a lot of effort and intelligent refining hard work into it. Deal with it.

It is interesting that the 'pro-innate talent' crowd here has completely ignored my repeated citations of well argued and well reasoned articles written on the subject. If you prefer, go to the source material mentioned in those articles. REGARDLESS OF EVERYONES *OPINIONS* and *ANECDOTAL STORIES* it is very clear, scientifically, and of course subsequently very true, that innate talent plays a marginal and barely detectable role in emergence of genuises or people who are great in their feild. Any subsequent discussion here as to any kind of significant influence that 'innate' talents play is a pure intellectually dishonest evasion. Unless you have performed large empirical and objectively verified studies which counter the ones mentioned and you can present a strong and well informed scientific case for a large influence that stems from 'innate talents' you are just a flapping mouth in the wind and are pretending to be that very same 'oracle' that Rand keeps getting derided here for being. So please present some strong objective evidence suggesting that innate talent has a strong influence or come to terms with the fact that you can indeed be good, great, or even a genuis at virtually anything you put in the 40,000 - 50,000 hours of rigourous refined effort toward. What you want to do with that capacity is up to you, but don't lie and evade the fact that you have that capacity. Michael F Dickey

Hmm, Try this one then: http://tinyurl.com/nyc4r "At this point, many skeptics will finally lose patience. Surely, they will say, it takes more to get to Carnegie Hall than practice, practice, practice. Yet this belief in the importance of innate talent, strongest perhaps among the experts themselves and their trainers, is strangely lacking in hard evidence to substantiate it. In 2002 Gobet conducted a study of British chess players ranging from amateurs to grandmasters and found no connection at all between their playing strengths and their visual-spatial abilities, as measured by shape-memory tests" "Although nobody has yet been able to predict who will become a great expert in any field, a notable experiment has shown the possibility of deliberately creating one. László Polgár, an educator in Hungary, homeschooled his three daughters in chess, assigning as much as six hours of work a day, producing one international master and two grandmasters--the strongest chess-playing siblings in history. The youngest Polgár, 30-year-old Judit, is now ranked 14th in the world" "The one thing that all expertise theorists agree on is that it takes enormous effort to build these structures in the mind. Simon coined a psychological law of his own, the 10-year rule, which states that it takes approximately a decade of heavy labor to master any field. Even child prodigies, such as Gauss in mathematics, Mozart in music and Bobby Fischer in chess, must have made an equivalent effort, perhaps by starting earlier and working harder than others." "Ericsson argues that what matters is not experience per se but "effortful study," which entails continually tackling challenges that lie just beyond one's competence. That is why it is possible for enthusiasts to spend tens of thousands of hours playing chess or golf or a musical instrument without ever advancing beyond the amateur level and why a properly trained student can overtake them in a relatively short time." "Even the novice engages in effortful study at first, which is why beginners so often improve rapidly in playing golf, say, or in driving a car. But having reached an acceptable performance--for instance, keeping up with one's golf buddies or passing a driver's exam--most people relax. Their performance then becomes automatic and therefore impervious to further improvement." "Teachers in sports, music and other fields tend to believe that talent matters and that they know it when they see it. In fact, they appear to be confusing ability with precocity. There is usually no way to tell, from a recital alone, whether a young violinist's extraordinary performance stems from innate ability or from years of Suzuki-style training." "The preponderance of psychological evidence indicates that experts are made, not born. What is more, the demonstrated ability to turn a child quickly into an expert--in chess, music and a host of other subjects--sets a clear challenge before the schools. Can educators find ways to encourage students to engage in the kind of effortful study that will improve their reading and math skills?" Etc Etc

Well said Angie. - Michael

I simply wanted to know why you haven't yet achieved at the level of an Einstein when you believe that you're capable of doing so. Was it laziness, or did you value something else higher? And what evidence can you present to us that you or anyone/everyone can will themselves to achieve at that level? Are we supposed to just take your word for it that you could, if you really really wanted to, achieve an Atlas Shrugged or an E=MC2, but you haven't, not because you lack natural talent, but because you just don't want to? J I answered your question in a previous post, if you are going to ask a question please make an attempt to read the answer. I'll post it again, though I am not sure why you skipped it in the first place. As to why I am not great, if you had actually read any of the posts or thought for 10 seconds about what I was saying, instead of looking for an opportunity to jump out and pat yourself on the back for trying to insult someone, you would have noticed that, for starters, to even become an ‘expert’ at something requires about 20,000 hours of effort, or about 10 years. See Scientific Americans excellent article on the subject - http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa...r=1&catID=2 which again presents plenty of scientific evidence supporting what I have been saying. How many hours are required to be a great genius? Probably more like 50,000. To become a genius at something requires devotion to virtually that one thing and nothing else for a large part of your life, I have no interest in becoming the greatest weldor to walk to face of the earth, nor the greatest 3d animator, I intend only to become good enough at the things I study in order for them to be useful for my long term goals. So you make the extremely incorrect assumption that because one *could* be great they ought to be, that because I think (and the evidence backs me up) almost anyone can be a genius at almost anything that I must become a genius at something, or that I would even want to become the greatest of any particular thing. To further that point, you could become the greatest race car driver in the world, but how much will that really help you in your commute to work? Frankly I don't care about my place in the with respect to others or their achievements, and what is considered great by society certainly is not line with what ought to be considered great from a life loving philosophy anyway. My point is to abolish the idea that you have millions of innate limits that no matter how hard you try you cannot overcome. It's not true, the human mind is extremely adaptable and is in fact the most advanced learning computer on the face of the planet. That philosophical attitude of a malevolent unkowable unconquerable universe to all be the great blessed few has robbed us of more greatness than probably any other predominant cultural ideal. It teaches that if you werent great as a child don't bother every trying to be great at anything, and many people, as evidenced in your response to that attitude, draw that out to suggest that one shouldnt even bother trying to be excellent or even good at it if they can't be the greatest at it. Michael F Dickey

Victor, I was drawing phenomal pictures that amazed my parents and teachers at a very young age as well. By the time I was in first grade I was drawing perspective pictures of racing cars for fellow classmates. In grade school I was busy designing robotic hands, in middle school I was designing entire robotic endoskeletons, elated in 7th grade to have figured out how to control a fully articulated shoulder joint with retracting cylinders. In high school I drew poster size drawing of futuristic cities and elaborate battles between predators and aliens. Friends would ask me to draw them a predator, and some of them still have those drawings. I have always been drawing and designing things, it comes 'naturally' to me, but do you seriously think I have or you have a DRAWING gene? I didnt have parents pushing me or goading me, but if I did, I certainly would have been a 'child prodigy' artist, because I would have put in a large number of the hours required to be really good at something at a very young age. The fact is I *LOVE* to draw, I am taunted by an empty notebook, I carry one around with me everywhere I go, I fawn over isometric graphing paper and am torturously taunted by such a thing, which absolutely screams out to me to freeze everyone of my mechanical ideas in physical form. I love to draw, I have always deeply enjoyed it. Did I have a gene for liking to draw, a gene for being able to draw, a gene that made me more likely to want to draw? Which is it? Do you like to draw? Some of my earliest memories are of the joy I felt drawing things. I can teach anyone to draw the way I can as well, and if the put the effort and interest into I have, they would be just as good, probably with minor deviations some slightly better some slightly worse. So, do I have a 'natural' innate talent for drawing? The fact is, I dont think you give yourself enough credit. Your drawing ability comes from your own interest, joy, and effort. Michael F Dickey

Well Jonathan, I am glad to see there is some pretentious abrasiveness on this forum after all to warrant the moderator’s criticisms. Assuming you are right then, Jonathan, how come you are not great? Were you born so retarded that you can not pick up an instrument and pluck a string, or so dumb that you can not read and write? Is your brain unable to form long term memories or even to recognize patterns, like an idiot savant? Are you a moron, idiot, retard, imbecile or what? I have not one single time ever advocated that because a person is capable of great things that they owe it to themselves or to society to do them. No one has the moral obligation to do absolutely everything they can to be great. That implies you have some obligation that you owe the world for your own existence. If you want to be great and work toward doing great things that is your own prerogative. To think they have some moral obligation is hardly more than the modern secular equivalent of original sin. To attribute your lack of greatness, however, to some abstract mystical fundamental inability because you weren’t ‘born’ with the right stuff is extremely intellectually dishonest. If you have ever thought ‘Well no matter how hard I try I couldn’t do it’ then you have committed this ultimate lie to yourself. As to why I am not great, if you had actually read any of the posts or thought for 10 seconds about what I was saying, instead of looking for an opportunity to jump out and pat yourself on the back for trying to insult someone, you would have noticed that, for starters, to even become an ‘expert’ at something requires about 20,000 hours of effort, or about 10 years. See Scientific Americans excellent article on the subject - http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa...r=1&catID=2 which again presents plenty of scientific evidence supporting what I have been saying. How many hours are required to be a great genius? Probably more like 50,000. To become a genius at something requires devotion to virtually that one thing and nothing else for a large part of your life, I have no interest in becoming the greatest weldor to walk to face of the earth, nor the greatest 3d animator, I intend only to become good enough at the things I study in order for them to be useful for my long term goals. So you make the extremely incorrect assumption that because one *could* be great they ought to be, that because I think (and the evidence backs me up) almost anyone can be a genius at almost anything that I must become a genius at something, or that I would even want to become the greatest of any particular thing. If you can only contribute abrasive attempts at insult please do not bother to contribute. Were you born with that ability or have you been developing it with effort over time? I was not aware that Rand’s philosophy, which advocated the idea that all the great advances of humanity have come from the singular intransigent effort of a minority or great, motivated, hard working individuals staying true to their ultimate ideals (which the scientific evidence backs) was replaced with the mystical notion of the great god kings born in material form on earth and blessing us with their innate greatness. Michael F Dickey

He states, in that article "They were the work of geniuses, people so much more talented than us that we could never paint or write anything comparable to their achievements, no matter how hard we tried or how long we lived." Yet presents no evidence backing that claim. By what means did he come to know that no matter how hard any of us tried we could never accomplish the things these great people have? The scientific evidence suggests otherwise, it suggests that the harder you try and the more work you put toward something the greater your accomplishments and success are. None of that dimishes the recognition and admiration we give toward the great genuises of history, in fact it means more, I think, because it is congratulations and admiration based on thier individual contribution to their greatness, not some mystical greatness they had no control over. Aboslihing the 'natural talent' myth (which, again, the scientific evidence suggests has very little effect if any) simple means that people will again understand the magnitude of their own potential. Whether they hold themselves accountable to that is a matter up to them. Research now shows that the lack of natural talent is irrelevant to great success. The secret? Painful and demanding practice and hard work http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/for...91794/index.htm Of note “Scientific experts are producing remarkably consistent findings across a wide array of fields. Understand that talent doesn't mean intelligence, motivation or personality traits. It's an innate ability to do some specific activity especially well. British-based researchers Michael J. Howe, Jane W. Davidson and John A. Sluboda conclude in an extensive study, "The evidence we have surveyed ... does not support the [notion that] excelling is a consequence of possessing innate gifts."

Victor, I am not sure if you are referring to me, but I did not pick up on any disrespectful tones here nor did I attempt to convey any. I seem to be accused of that frequently on this forum for hardly more than disagreeing. Michael, are disagreements not welcome on this forum? If so I shall depart as unwelcome. I have not been abusive of harsh or disrespectful, I have only disagreed with your and stated what I think is the underlying predominant cultural philosophical reason behind the attitude of embracing the ‘natural talent’ myth when hard science shows it, at most, barely relevant. Michael F Dickey

Michael: I am curious, do people who have had their corpus collusum severed (a type of epilepsy treatment includes severing the bundle of nerves that connect the two hemispheres with amazingly few side effects) have any problems playing or composing music? Of course having more communication between the right and left hemispheres might be consequence of studying and developing musical capabilities, and not the source of the abilities or trigger point for them. Music is both creative and logical (extremely mathematical) so it’s clear it would require both specialization areas of the brain to accomplish. That’s akin to saying people that have a larger pre-frontal cortex are more intelligent, when using your intelligence obviously encourages the growth and development of the brain in this area, likewise martial artists, gymnasts, and ballet dancers probably see much more communication between the areas of the brain responsible for musculature control and the rest of the brain. It is easy to confuse the cause and effect in these cases. I certainly do not think a random mother who appreciates her 2 year olds colored drawings and comments on it is trying to blank out her own laziness either, nor do I think it is appropriate to attribute such a sentiment to me (if that was your intention) it’s rather disingenuous. It’s clear that some people start doing things earlier, perhaps they have physiological mechanisms making them able to start and get better at those things earlier on, or perhaps they happen to do something and enjoyed it more than other young children and thus did it more, thus developing those physiological differences as they grew. Case in point, I read about a young girl, some 18 years old now, who is the best female rock climber in the world. She blows away all competition, rushing past the second best with no problems. What’s her secret? She grew up in Africa with her missionary parents and had as a best friend a spider monkey, she spent much of her childhood playing in trees with monkeys, doing much of this while she was physiologically growing and developing. In effect, she changed her own body structure because of this activity, her arms with respect to her other body proportions are longer than 90% of people, and her fingers as well. She can do pull ups with just two fingers. One could certainly look at her and say ‘Aha, look at all that natural talent and potential she was born with’ but they would be wrong as her difference was entirely environmentally induced. Just like Tiger Woods, who was playing golf before he could walk. However, the tendency for us to attribute other peoples accomplishments to some ‘innate’ talent, some natural extra capacity for music, art, or sports, is just a form of mass psychological deferral. It is implicitly a tendency to simply forgive ourselves for not accomplishing those things. No, the mother is not explicitly forgiving herself for never developing her artistic interests, but she is advocating a world view in which ‘natural talent’ plays the predominant role. In reality, in ALL of these cases of the most accomplished people in the world, they ALL required extremely hard work and long term dedication, they constantly worked to develop and refine their abilities, pushing themselves always beyond their existing limitations. I cant count how many times someone has told me ‘wow, you’re so smart’ when I go on some tangent about physics or what not, 'how do you know all this stuff!' as I am sure many people here have experienced. It annoys me because I know I am not, I have no greater capacity than an average person, I don’t remember things quicker or better. I just read, a lot, and they do not. They are lazy, they sit around and watch TV every night, all night. They gossip for hours on end on the phone. They play video games all weekend. There is a reason they are not smarter people, because they never challenge and develop their own minds and ideas. To think of all the great things they could accomplish if they stopped insisting they were stupid mesmerizes me. At a explicit and conscious level, no they are not forgiving themselves their laziness, nor are parents who recognize an ‘innate’ talent of a child doing so, (I still doubt there is such a thing beyond a child engrossing themselves in something they enjoy) but at a subconsiouss level, to some degree, every time we think something like that or say something like that, we are, again, advocating that world view and to some degree are integrating its consequences into our own minds. We are because it really doesn’t matter what one’s innate talent is, if you want to do something and learn it, just do it. What practical reason could a rational adult who obsesses over such things really have? If they want to excuse themselves out of learning something they might want to learn ‘oh, I could never be as good as such and such’ or ‘oh, no matter how hard I try, I could never make that sculpture or write that book, I just wasn’t born with that sculptor or author gene’ well now they have a perfect excuse. Why are we obsessing over it, are we looking maybe for things we ourselves or our children might be naturally better at? Are we in the business of pushing our children to do things because we think they might excel at it? My point is, it really doesn’t matter, if ‘natural’ talent plays a role, the major role it plays is defining your ultimate limit, so if your goal is to be better than everyone else in the world at something, then it is worthwhile looking into your ‘natural’ differences, gifts or talents. If your goal is to give up before your start because you wont be the best, then it makes sense to attribute much of people’s levels of accomplishment to natural talent. But if you have an interest in doing something, regardless of your 2nd handed place in the world, then just learn it, do it, and enjoy yourself, what role does natural talent play in that? If I walked up to a body builder and said ‘wow, lucky you born with all those big muscles!” how do you think he would react? He wasn’t born with them, he had to life weights, just like every other guy there, over and over again, hours and hours and hours on end. And here I come and suggest to him how lucky he is, basically, to have been born with big muscles. The ‘muscles’ you develop in your mind devoted to particular tasks are no different. Additionally, the human species differs genetically less than any other species on the planet, a random group of 1000 chimpanzees will contain more genetic variation than the whole of the human population. In that very limited room for genetic variation, how much of it do you really think plays a significant roll in how well someone plays an instrument or swings a club and hits a ball? As for your practical purpose, how does it apply? If there is an influence of ‘innate’ talent, it is extremely difficult to identify and would come from a complex interplay of many different genes. You would hardly be able to decipher its influence until you learn what your ultimate limitation was, which will still require thousands of hours of unceasing hard work and dedication. How is not concerning one’s self with ‘natural’ talent ‘limitations’ (which are hardly more than pseudoscientific ascertains at the moment anyway) an evasion of reality? Would you really not want to take up art if someone put you in an MRI and did a genetic screening and pronounced “Well, I am sorry Michael but you have very little chance of being the best sculptor in the world” Would you quite your pursuit? Well, as Homer (Simpson) said, “The first step of failure is trying!” Michael F Dickey

Maybe, Victor, but you don't know that for sure. It's not like millions of people spend most of their waking life perfecting their abilities to paint or sculpt, and many artists are not judged by objective criteria anyway (Jackson Pollack anyone?) But it could very well be that you might be a much much better violinist than Yo Yo Ma but you'd never know because you never picked up a violon to find out, let alone spent 100,000 hours perfecting your ability to play it (the average time it takes a person to become an 'expert' at something) Same goes for long distance bicycling, skeet shooting, basketball, or memorizing long strings of numbers. We could have millions of people walking around who are better composers than Mozart (who was a pop musician of his day anyway) or better scientists than Einstein but are way too busy watching survivor, gossiping, and shopping to ever find out.

It is only your maximum potential and maximum capacity that is limited by any innate talent and I think it is important to add to this discussion that the vast majority of people never come anywhere *near* their potential, so to speak of a higher innate potential or capacity is really beside the point. Even Einstein immersed himself in scientific papers and publications for years on end, and still his most productive years were the years he left his wife and children in another country. The point being, unless you spend nearly 100% of your waking moments, and then even go with less sleep to have more waking moments, on doing that thing you are trying to excel at, you will not ever come anywhere near your own maximal potential in it, so stop thinking about your potential and innate capacities and just get off your butts and do the things you are interested in! I find more often than not that the people who appeal to innate differences are just looking for ways to excuse their own laziness. If you can't draw well, go to the book store and buy a book on 'learning how to draw' or take an art class at a local community college, or grab a pencil and just try. I was not born with a gene to weld, but I bought books on it and practiced for hours on end, now I am a decent welder. I have no gene for composite construction, 3D animation, computer modeling, aluminum casting, home remodeling, plumbing, electrical, drawing, sketching, designing, etc etc etc. But a lot of practice at all of these things makes me better and better at them, and also makes it perpetaully easier to learn newer skills. Again I suggest reading the article I posted in an earlier comment. The human mind, unlike all other computers, actually gets faster with the more information that is stored in it. Michael F Dickey

Nobody is born knowing how to play an instrument. All the greatest artists, scientists, and sports players spent many many years pushing themselves in their fields. See this article - "Research now shows that the lack of natural talent is irrelevant to great success. The secret? Painful and demanding practice and hard work " - http://biz.yahoo.com/weekend/great_1.html Michael F Dickey