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No Such Thing AsTalent

  
  

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Quantum
13:13 / 12.06.03
So for my degree I had to study 'Art, Creativity and Excellence' from a cognitive psychology perspective. After a few months of scepticism I reluctantly admitted my professor was right and that there is no such thing as talent- skills are acquired only through practice.

It takes about ten thousand hours of practice to become 'expert' at something (e.g. chess grandmaster) but thinking about it counts as a form of practice.

Everybody I tell this too says 'Ooh but what about Michaelangelo/idiot savants/David Beckham?' or 'But I'm talentless at music/maths/science/drawing' or 'That's crap.'

So I've started this thread. I reckon I can persuade you that motivation and parental guidance are the main factors in skill acquisition and 'talented' people have in fact worked their arses off to get that good- and you could too.

(Note to pedants- physical disabilities aside, obviously someone with MS will never be a good footballer easily and a blind person won't be a great painter)
 
 
Matthew Fluxington
13:23 / 12.06.03
That's bullshit. One can acquire/hone skills with practice, but somethings just come very naturally to some people, and that's talent. It may make some people feel better about themselves to think that gifted people owe all of that to hard work and dedication, but there is almost always a baseline level of natural aptitude that a person must have to work from. Some people are special. Deal with it.

Think about singing - one can work at becoming a better singer, but truly talented singers can hear tone and have a natural range that hit notes that other people cannot. If someone is tonedeaf or has a very limited vocal range, there is no way in hell they can hope to compete with a gifted singer in terms of musical proficiency.
 
 
Persephone
13:37 / 12.06.03
It's a fallacy that talent and practice are mutually exclusive quantities, that's where I'd start.
 
 
William Sack
13:49 / 12.06.03
I think I would take some convincing Quantum. I'll confine myself to one thing that I have managed to demonstrate some sort of expertise in: cricket. I was actually pretty good in my day (though not on the same level of sporting excellence as Gingerbop). I was coached, practised a fair amount, and really enjoyed it - all of which help in the skills acquisition stakes. However, there is no doubt in my mind from observing those around me that some people were just more talented than others. I was a better cricketer that a friend of mine who was more committed to excel than I was - he started playing before I did, he had more coaching and practised harder. The there was another friend of mine who practised less than me, couldn't give a shit, and yet achieved much more than I could ever hope to. In a differnet realm of achievement altogether there is Donald Bradman. From the sounds of it, he practised for hours and hours and hours from a very early age, but then again so did many other cricketers. His test batting average is almost double that of any other cricketer. I don't think that practice accounted for this.
 
 
grant
16:06 / 12.06.03
It might be that certain unconsciously practiced skills fit in well with certain "talent" skillsets that come along later.

Like, maybe a good ball player did a lot of catching, or tracking moving objects early on in life... "practicing" a certain element without tying it to a specific sport.
 
 
gingerbop
22:28 / 12.06.03
I think its a bit of both-
Mainly about practice, but partly its how quickly you pick up skill from that practice. I'm not sure if i would define what you pick up quicker than other things is talent, but its a part of the bigger picture.
 
 
diz
23:41 / 12.06.03
It might be that certain unconsciously practiced skills fit in well with certain "talent" skillsets that come along later.

this is a really good point.

i would like to take it and couple it with an idea or two about neurology and early childhood development. gazillions of connections are made in the infant brain which then effectively hardwire that brain into a certain configuration, which essentially sets most of the limits and creates most of the aptitudes that will define a person's capabilities later in life.

as an example, infants that are immersed in complex language-play will become better readers faster, even though they were too young to "learn" the language they overheard in the traditional sense, because lots and lots of neural pathways were burned into the part of the brain responsible for language during a crucial stage in brain development. conversely, kids who were not exposed to language much as babies have a much harder time learning to read and develop verbal skills, because the hardware they need to do so just isn't there, and it's too late to build it as easily now, because the brain is developing more slowly.

though this is definitely "learning" in some sense, it's not the traditional one, and the real, measurable effects of this kind of early "practice" on brain development won't be evident in behavior and aptitudes until much later.

person X will learn something more quickly than person Y because person X's infant brain developed in the right way and person Y's didn't, probably as a result of some kind of activity that wouldn't seem directly related. in other words, person X's brain learned to do something a long time ago, which, incidentally, is now helpful in learning the new skill in question.

however, since the causal relationship is probably really obscure now (e.g. i had a mobile hanging over my bed, which trained my visual cortex to follow moving objects, and so now i'm a deadly master of the ping-pong table?), and because no one was really aware of the "learning" while it was happening, it will seem like a "natural talent" out of nowhere.

but, at the same time, it might as well be natural talent, for all that it resembles training of any kind.

i think what i'm getting at is that the arbitrary boundary we like to draw between "talent" and "practice" loses most of it's meaning when you start to talk about early childhood development, because it seems that a lot of the capabilities that people seem to have been born with are the result of postnatal environment, in such a way that it almost makes more sense to say that there's a point in which our infant bodies teach themselves how to be our older bodies by reading environmental cues and adapting accordingly.
 
 
Quantum
07:52 / 13.06.03
That's bullshit. (flux)
See what I mean?

dizfactor hit the nail on the head, babies brains are plastic (not like androids, plastic meaning mutable) and develop their (our) 'Talents' based on their environment. A kickass singer is likely to have spent a lot of time listening to music and singing as a child, and almost certainly has a musical family background.

To take a difficult example, Beethoven was writing symphonies when he was five; Because his father made him practice all the time and was determined he would be a great musician from the day he was born (to make up for his own failure, but that's another story)


Look at it another way- if Talent were inherent it would have to be genetic, wouldn't it? Do you really think there's some part of your DNA devoted to singing or cricket? If I were born a talented footballer, why couldn't I play footbal when I was a baby? because I had to learn how to do it, by practicing.


I don't want to get tangled in the nature/nurture debate, but I can assure you the notion of Talent is a fiction. Skills are acquired through practice, and practice is powered by motivation. There's no such thing as natural talent.
 
 
William Sack
08:48 / 13.06.03


No I don't, but I have to say that I know jack about biology and genetics. But are there not parts of DNA which are devoted to the development of certain physical characteristics? Aren't some people just born with, say, better eyesight than others? Going on from that (and once again stressing that I don't really know what I am talking about when it comes to science - wrong toys as a baby perhaps) would it not be the case that some people are born with better spatial awareness and reaction speeds which would give them a 'natural' advantage in playing ball sports? I understand the point Grant and Dizfactor make about unconsciously practised skills, but surely the genetic cards one is dealt at birth (or conception even) have a bearing?
 
 
William Sack
08:51 / 13.06.03
Sorry, I am an html dummy as well. My "No I don't" was in reply to Quantum's question Do you really think there's some part of your DNA devoted to singing or cricket?
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
10:05 / 13.06.03
Hm.

True or not, it seems to me to be irrelevant. Whatever the 'true' situation, the world functions as if there were such a thing as talent. I grew up in a creative household - practicing, if you're right, creativity for many hours with my family. Result? I have what appears to be a talent for story. I must have logged way, way more than ten thousand hours of creative practice when I was a kid - a time when study apparently counts for more than it does later on.

So what difference does it make? Talent and practice, or just a whole lot of practice so thoroughly internalised as to be indistinguishable from talent? You could argue that someone could acquire talent if it's really just practice - but that might not be true: some patterns appear to be fixed early and very hard to change thereafter - witness recent evidence suggesting that how happy you are with your life has little to do with circumstances - within reason - and a great deal to do with care and comfort to the age of six.
 
 
Quantum
10:47 / 13.06.03
"Aren't some people just born with, say, better eyesight than others?" H.I.R
Yes, but the differences between most people are slight, but become more pronounced as they get older because of the butterfly effect (sensitivity to initial conditions)- people develop a feedback loop. (see below)
Say you're born with excellent vision- what talent will that be? Won't the existence of glasses simply nullify that advantage?

some people are born with better spatial awareness and reaction speeds which would give them a 'natural' advantage in playing ball sports?
Men have a better sense of spatial awareness than women- so they have a natural advantage in ball sports. Are men more talented at ball sports than women?

Rather than consider advantages let's look at disadvantages. If you're born physically weak say, you're much less likely to develop a love of sports and are more likely to develop a 'talent' for academic and intellectual pursuits. But this applies equally to children who spend a lot of time sick, so how is it Talent? If I was born puny and my friend was made puny by measles as a child, and we're both math geeks, am I 'talented' at maths and he's good at maths because of the measles?

So what difference does it make?
A lot of people (the majority?) believe that they could never be musical/sciency/creative because they're just not talented at it. This belief is also projected on their children ("little Johnny's such a talented artist, he's going to grow up and be a painter") which restricts their potential. (see 'tangent warning' post)
I know so many people who say 'Oh I'm just crap at maths' as though it were like being colour blind. It ain't. ANYONE can learn ANYTHING (disabilities aside) and more importantly your children can be polymaths like Michaelangelo and DaVinci.
 
 
Grey Cell
11:40 / 13.06.03
But are there not parts of DNA which are devoted to the development of certain physical characteristics? Aren't some people just born with, say, better eyesight than others?

Some people will indeed have a physical advantage in certain fields. But I find motivation to be far more important. For example, you can meet all the necessary physical requirements for becoming a top athlete from birth, but if you're a lazy slob, you'll never win a medal.

So what difference does it make? Talent and practice, or just a whole lot of practice so thoroughly internalised as to be indistinguishable from talent?

Then it all depends on how you define talent - is it the seemingly innate (sp?) aptitudes that result from the environmental stimuli we receive in the first years of our lives and that shape our brains and minds without us being aware of it, or is it a set of fixed aptitudes that will push our life in a certain direction from the moment we are born?

Either way, having potential is good - but ultimately, developing it is what matters. I'm with Quantum and dizfactor on this one.
 
 
Grey Cell
11:49 / 13.06.03
A lot of people (the majority?) believe that they could never be musical/sciency/creative because they're just not talented at it. This belief is also projected on their children ("little Johnny's such a talented artist, he's going to grow up and be a painter") which restricts their potential.

Argh... Beaten to it by almost an hour. I'm slow.

Anyway, being a graphic designer myself, I can confirm from personal experience that the above statement is 100% correct. I've shocked a lot of family and friends by saying that I'm not some semi-divine visionary "artist", but that I simply worked my ass off to become good at my chosen profession, and that they could have done the same - maybe with more effort, maybe with less. I have met people who could have been far better artists than I am, but simply chose to become something else. People don't like it when you debunk their myths.
 
 
Quantum
12:51 / 13.06.03
I think most top flight musicians/writers/artists/scientists/whatever would agree with you Ghostwheel, it's not god given talent it's hard fucking work that gets you there. If I was brilliant at something I'd be pissed off if the dedication I'd put into it was denigrated as natural talent.

The other day I was thinking about this, and I thought about virtuoso violinists and footballers, my age or younger, and I thought 'What the fuck? While they were practicing their skill what was I doing?' The answer is slacking. I could be considered an expert procrastinator, and probably a trivia expert too. I have way more than ten thousand hours practice roleplaying (for example) and way, way more than that reading (I read 400 words a minute) but those skills aren't unusual and also aren't in demand. In our society only specialists prosper, and I'm a generalist.
The flip side of this is that the time grandmasters etc. spent honing their 'talent' was sacrificed, and especially as children that time would otherwise have been spent playing, daydreaming and generally picking up interpersonal skills. I reckon that's why so many geniuses are socially inept or eccentric- because they spent their time studying instead of socialising. To be fantastic at one thing you have to sacrifice being good at loads of things, social interaction included.
An archetypal example of this is the nerd/geek stereotype, lacking in social skills but excelling in knowledge skills, because they retreat into book learning. This tendency reinforces itself, the more geeky they get the less time they spend socialising and the more they excel at academic stuff, so the more geeky they (we!) get.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
14:25 / 13.06.03
A lot of people (the majority?) believe that they could never be musical/sciency/creative because they're just not talented at it.

And they might still be right, even if there's nothing inherent about it. There's no guarantee that you can overcome the Nurture you describe - I'd love to believe that if I took it into my head, this hour of this day, to become Paul Erdos' successor in mathematics, to live maths heart and soul and body, that I could. The evidence is against me, however: many brilliant mathematicians, with (according to your construction of talent) many thousands of Maths-hours, looking directly at the Erdos crown, have been unable to match him.

It is possible that the intersections of influence which govern 'talent' (assuming your thesis is correct) are simply too insanely complex for us to map - like weather. We'd need a map the same size as the territory...

It is also possible that the time of life when this pattern is (irrevocably?) set is very, very young.

It is possible that it is as much a question of personality as 'talent' - and would you be prepared to give up your identity in exchange for an ability? You would not necessarily be able to go back. Genius is frequently personally offensive...

It is possible that the brainwashing/reprogramming (call it what you will, and note that we're very, very bad at undoing cult and military programming, even now) necessary to make changes of this kind would do monstrous damage to the person concerned.

Does this argument, for you, have a political side? The democratisation of talent? You are aware of the Soviet experiments in this direction?
 
 
Mr Messy
14:31 / 13.06.03
When I first started reading this thread, I felt annoyance. It went something like What is it about cognitive psychologists that makes them want to create theories that contain no room for any kind of exceptions. Its greedy and pompous.
This is in fact a revealing statement about myself and my own experiences in the world. I hate the idea that things have to be fixed, immutable. That there is no room for compromise.
But as I've read more I've begun to warm to the theory. The implications for teaching and learning are immense, and very positive. When I think of myself growing up, I'm reminded that there was a big expectation on me from my parents to be perfect, to excel in every way.
Well this has left me with some huge hang ups and I'm quite hard on myself, but in a positive light I am pretty darn good at a lot of things. I practiced a lot on a lot of different skills.
Hell, I'm a believer.
Amen.
 
 
topical b
15:24 / 13.06.03
conversely, kids who were not exposed to language much as babies have a much harder time learning to read and develop verbal skills, because the hardware they need to do so just isn't there, and it's too late to build it as easily now, because the brain is developing more slowly.

my stepmother confirms this. she spent close to 10 years studying child development and montasori teaching techniques. one night at the dinner table she challenged my three little brothers saying that with each consecutive child language skills tend to deteriorate. the reason for this being, the first child has mostly adults to talk with, subsequent children have more children to speak with. in this manner the first child gets more practice with more advanced language skills. the second child practices language more with the first child giving the second a less steep learning curve. my brothers argued that they also aquired language skills in other places such as books. my stepmother replied that she could not accept this arguement until they brought their english grades up.
 
 
Quantum
11:04 / 16.06.03
Does this argument, for you, have a political side?
Well, not really. It's a backlash against the idea of innate skills that is so often taken for granted, and just to let people know that the dominant psychological paradigm discredits the idea. The information wants to be free.
It's not that I'm for the democratisation of talent, when I was taught this I raised a billion objections (including along the lines of Paul Erdos' successor in mathematics.., geniuses and polymaths seem to contradict this idea, but on closer examination can be explained) because I'm basically elitist. But I was convinced, mostly by considering the evidence for the existence of talent and finding it to be unconvincing.

It is also possible that the time of life when this pattern is (irrevocably?) set is very, very young.
As you age your brain becomes less plastic, so the earlier you start learning something the better. But they're never set completely, it just gets harder to learn things (e.g. old people and computers. They can learn to use them but not as easily as children can).

It is possible that it is as much a question of personality as 'talent'
Definitely. That's my point, skill acquisition is influenced by motivation, by personality, it lies in the domain of 'things we can do something about' instead of 'things we're stuck with'.
That's my main motive in this thread, to make people realise 'talent' is acquirable- it's under your control.

brainwashing/reprogramming
nothing that drastic is needed, just motivation. If you want to do something you can get good at it, if you want it enough.

Related to this stuff about talent, do people believe personality is innate? I believe we can change our own personalities, and the existence of psychotherapy and anger management counselling etc. seems to support this.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
11:43 / 16.06.03
geniuses and polymaths seem to contradict this idea, but on closer examination can be explained

How?

But they're never set completely, it just gets harder to learn things (e.g. old people and computers. They can learn to use them but not as easily as children can).

Well, I'm not sure it's so hard to learn to use them, more that children are prepped for them by any number of things - tv remotes, playstation, and so on. One of the things my parents find confusing in technology is 'all the little wiggly lines' on the buttons. I look at a single horizontal line surmounted by a triangle and see 'eject', but it's about as intuitive as a dictionary in a sackful of lemmings. However, there is (alas, as yet) only a finite amount of time. So yes, sure, you could become a massively talented person, if you lived long enough. There is also a question about talent and work in later life; some fields seem to be 'young people's games' - though I tend to think that's rubbish.

It's also possible that that plasticity you refer to is vital for more than just learning - possibly synthesis, fantasy, and intuitive leaps require that kind of flexibility.

That's my point, skill acquisition is influenced by motivation, by personality, it lies in the domain of 'things we can do something about' instead of 'things we're stuck with'.
That's my main motive in this thread, to make people realise 'talent' is acquirable- it's under your control.

Given the amount of trouble you have to go to to change your personality, I'd say you were digging a bit of a hole for yourself here.

brainwashing/reprogramming
nothing that drastic is needed, just motivation. If you want to do something you can get good at it, if you want it enough.

And you want it enough because... Hmm.

I wonder about the unintended consequences of changing your abilities. Suppose you are a mediocre actor, and you decide to become a mathematician. You might wish to remain the relaxed, fuddled dope-head and carouser you were, and yet discover that, as you become the mathematician, that life no longer appealed. You still knew how to party, but you kicked the Mary Jane because it messed with your math, and soon enough, you found the conversation of your old friends a little humdrum. Your marrige breaks down (or you suddenly get hitched) and your life changes completely...

All I'm saying is that your position seems a little simplistic; I'm sure you know all the caveats to the point where there's no point expressing them... But from the outside, Dr. Quantum's School For The Gifted doesn't have much appeal.

Incidentally, rather than asking if this has a political aspect for you, I should point out that it has a political aspect of rather knobbly and awkward dimensions. If your position is accurate, then how is it to be decided who gets the resources to become a fully realised person? All of us have equal potential in any direction. Knowing that, will anyone be satisfied being anything less than an Alpha? Who will do the drains and build the roads? It becomes a function of personality... And that, apparently, is also a function of environment. In other words, society conditions a sub-class - but it would have to, somehow...

Hardly news, but not something you can ignore.
 
 
Whisky Priestess
16:21 / 16.06.03
If "talent" is purely a product of environment, shouldn't the vast majority of the talented in history have comes from middle- and upper-class homes where there were a) the resources and b) the leisure to develop "talent"?

Oh hang on ... they did.

And I don't think our illustrious thread-starter was suggesting that everybody should be allowed to realise their potential and become talented brilliant practitioners of art, music or whatever. Obviously in a capitalist, hierarchical society that's never going to happen: there has to be someone underneath you if you want to be on top.

Also, we've been talking mainly about creative, sporting or academic excellence here: how about admitting that some people simply have a "talent" for accounting, for retailing, for gambling, driving, digging ditches, birdwatching etc. and recognising that many people are fulfilled, talent-wise - it's just that they tend to put their "talent" into their hobbies and their grudging time into their jobs. Result: ten thousand unsatisfied doctors/lawyers/financiers who would rather have been a golfing pro, diappearing off to the links every weekend. Ah me.

Another result is that plenty of people are willing do stuff generally considered to be fun and glamorous (acting, writing, being in a band) for free - or even to pay for the privilege. Those who are "talented"/lucky enough to be paid to do it are the truly fulfilled. Bastards.
 
 
diz
18:00 / 16.06.03
1) As you age your brain becomes less plastic, so the earlier you start learning something the better. But they're never set completely, it just gets harder to learn things (e.g. old people and computers. They can learn to use them but not as easily as children can).

2) That's my main motive in this thread, to make people realise 'talent' is acquirable- it's under your control.

i think you're greatly underestimating the limiting effects of statement #1 on statement #2. the drop off in plasticity is really astonishingly great at different developmental stages, to the point where mastering a given skill becomes, effectively, impossible.

the idea that you can learn anything you're willing to put your mind to is incredibly simplistic and completely ignores the past few decades worth of research into neural development.

nothing that drastic is needed, just motivation. If you want to do something you can get good at it, if you want it enough.

i'm sorry, but that's just not true. example:

Mandarin Chinese is a tonal language, meaning that changes in tone change the actual meanings of the words, whereas in my native language (English) they indicate mood or emphasis or whatever, but not meaning. since i grew up in an English-speaking household, the parts of my brain that differentiate tone are simply not as developed as the same parts of the brain in someone who grew up in a Chinese-speaking environment.

most of the research i've seen is that most of the neural pathways for distinguishing between fine shades of spoken tone are fixed in the first few months (maybe even weeks) of life. by the time a child can walk, this part of their hearing comprehension is pretty much wrapped up. as a result, native Chinese speakers are capable of distinguishing between finer gradiations of tone than i am, and because i'm no longer an infant, by brain is no longer capable of rewiring itself to accomodate the tonal variations of the Chinese language.

if i work at it enough, i can work around my neurological disadvantage enough to be conversational (thoguh still obviously not a native speaker), but no matter how hard i work at it, i'm never going to truly master the subtleties and nuances of the language, at least not in its spoken form, and in any cases i'm still going to make a lot of mistakes. it's just not an option for me anymore - i am too old.

that's just the gross neurological issues, what are essentially the hard limits of an adult or even adolescent brain. you could also look at things like muscle memory and physical skills for obvious refutations of your idea. i'm in reasonably good shape. however, i'm 28 years old, and as such, i am well past the point where any amount of work will turn me into an Olympic gymnast.

finally, as Nick alluded to, you aren't factoring in the fact that as the neural pathways of the brain become more fixed, the time necessary to learn something increases. since you have less time stretched out ahead of you the older you get, you're quickly boxing yourself in. my mom is never going to get a doctorate in quantum physics, since she has no science background and she would have had to start a long time ago to finish before she dies.

i think that what you're saying is true, to some extent, in that if you raise someone from birth to be good at something, and they put in the necessary work, they will be good at it. however, you're greatly underestimating the degree to which opportunities which are not taken early in life disappear over time, pretty much permanently.
 
 
Mirror
20:03 / 16.06.03
Isn't this just the nature vs. nurture argument rehashed and put in slightly different context? It seems to me that it's just as possible to be "naturally" talented as it is to be "naturally" gay or tall or whatever. Certainly there are a lot of folks who use "lack of talent" as an excuse for ineptitude, but making the argument that "talent" is entirely artificial argument obscures the fact that people do have inherent biological differences.

The argument was made earlier that for the most part, talented people in history are frequently the offspring of the priveleged classes, presuming that said privelege is an enabler for the development of talent. Is it not equally plausible that talent is in fact an inherited trait, and thus the offspring of talented people are more likely to be talented themselves? Privelege often accrues to the most able of a society.

Of course you can always acquire proficiency at a task - but it is very likely that there's someone with just about the same background as you who is more adept. A significant factor in the difference between you and that person is the rate at which you are each able to learn, which very clearly differs between individuals.
 
 
gingerbop
22:37 / 16.06.03
What about inventing? Its just something that springs to mind that would be near impossible to practice; then surely this "talent" for innovation is inate, not learned?
 
 
diz
02:01 / 17.06.03
What about inventing? Its just something that springs to mind that would be near impossible to practice; then surely this "talent" for innovation is inate, not learned?

that's not usually true. there's a lot of very strong work being done right now in teaching innovation. generally speaking, ideas don't just "spring to mind" but rather out of a context that supports innovation. it's really just a skill like any other, in that you train your brain to think a certain way, emphasizing novel approaches to practical issues.
 
 
Quantum
13:03 / 17.06.03
geniuses and polymaths seem to contradict this idea, but on closer examination can be explained

How?

By examining their biographies, mostly. Most often they are monomaniacal, sacrificing their socialisation time to thought and practice on their skill (or skills in the case of polymaths). They were also almost all really hard workers, with little time for relaxation or procrastination- they didn't waste their time. Driven is the word I would use to describe what they all have in common.

i'm sorry, but that's just not true. example:
Mandarin Chinese... (dizfactor)
Strangely enough a friend of mine moved to China a couple of years ago and has taught himself Mandarin. He's English, 28 and is pretty fluent now. Are you saying that there is a ceiling he can never exceed?
I believe that in twenty years time (he lives there now) his mandarin will be fluent enough to match a native speaker, although he will likely have an accent. Motivation and practice, that's all it takes.

More later on Brain Plasticity and Physical aspects of 'Talent'
 
 
diz
13:18 / 17.06.03
Strangely enough a friend of mine moved to China a couple of years ago and has taught himself Mandarin. He's English, 28 and is pretty fluent now.

according to him, yes. you don't know how he sounds to a native speaker.

Are you saying that there is a ceiling he can never exceed?

yes.
 
 
pomegranate
13:35 / 17.06.03
i *do* think there are genes for singing and cricket. there are genes for everything. the idea of being born w/a tabula rasa is completely outdated; it's been proven wrong by the myriad separated twin studies. identical twins, separated at birth, raised in totally different environments, will have similar mannerisms, political views, skills, etc. even their degree of religiousness is similar. in fact, twins raised together are often more different than those raised apart-- probably trying to assert their own identity. so i think some people are born to be better at some things than others.

having said that, is practice important? hell yeah. when i read that bit about the 10,000 hours a while back, i tried to think of what i've *already* dedicated 10,000 hours to. the only thing i could come up w/was fashion/style/clothes. (or else, maybe, broadly, "interpersonal relations," as in talking and hanging out.) anyways, it's interesting to consider. should i turn my life around and pursue what i'm already so well-versed in? i'm considering it. and then you can also think, ok, if i win the lottery and quit my job and work 8 hours every day on the piano (or whatever), how many years will it take till i'm an expert? (answer: 'bout 3 years, 5 months, and five days, according to my calculations...better get busy.)
 
 
Mirror
14:28 / 17.06.03
It seems to me that evolutionary theory in general runs contrary to the idea that there's no such thing as innate talent. Historically, the talented ones have been the ones to survive and pass along their genetic material - the untalented or unfit have died off without reproducing, thus advancing our species. If the playing field was completely level in a biological sense, how could natural selection have any effect on the species?
 
 
Whisky Priestess
14:40 / 17.06.03
The point about language skills is very interesting, because it's not just bound up with simple knowledge of rules of grammar, vocab etc. but knowledge of the nuances of the language and therefore the culture and society within and for which that language operates.

Basically I have often thought the same thing about English: that no matter how good you get, if you haven't grown up in the culture and speaking the language, no native would ever take you for a native if they had to spend more than a few hours talking to you. It's a cultural immersion thang, I think. Having spent part of my childhood living abroad I still can't contribute when people mention Bagpuss or reminisce about the Magic Roundabout, and it makes me feel very alien.

Perhaps they should do some sort of Faking It programme on the subject? Take a English Mandarin Chinese speaker and an Chinese English-speaker and get them to try to convince native that they were born and/or grew up in the country in question. Would be fun!
 
 
cusm
17:18 / 17.06.03
Natice speakers of the same age category will always be better at the language, simply because they've had more practice at it. If you want to keep up with 22 year old natice speakers, you will need to have been speaking for about 22 years. Only, probably more so, due to slower learning curves as one ages. So there is a sort of ceiling, but its not the hard kind. You can study Mandarin for 5 years and be as perfectly fluent as a 5 year old, but you'll need more like 20 to pass as a fluent adult. Though this as with anything else varies with the learning ability of the person.

I think that is more where 'talent' comes into play, the inherent learning ability of the person as affected by genetics. Perhaps one person is wired for a slightly higher level of seratonin than someone else by genetic disposition, and exhibits a more effective learning ability. Isn't that a form of talent? And what if, prior to any stimulus, a particular region of the brain is more developed than another due to genetic variance? Isn't that a form of talent, in the form of simply having more 'circuits' to work with in a given area such as hand/eye coordination?

I think if you want to look at talents, you have to look at the most baseline general areas the brain can process in, not specific skills. Certainly, one can with effort overcome any initial state to learn the same skill to the same level. But how can you measure the effort two people made to reach the same level, given the same determination to reach it? If there is talent, it is not only something that can be completely overwritten with effort, but is very difficult to measure.

Never the less, even discounting 'natural' talent, we still become talented in skill areas we work in, developing what acts as talent later in life regardless of how it was formed. As adults, its still a factor, even if we did it to ourselves as children. The end effect for us is the presence of talent, regardless of its origin.
 
 
diz
17:54 / 17.06.03
The point about language skills is very interesting, because it's not just bound up with simple knowledge of rules of grammar, vocab etc. but knowledge of the nuances of the language and therefore the culture and society within and for which that language operates.

all of this is true. on top of that, there are neurological issues relating to the actual sense perceptions of the sound itself. people raised speaking a non-tonal language in most cases simply can't hear the same fine distinctions between tones that native speakers can. there are tonal differences that are used (as far as i understand it) in spoken Chinese that are analogous to the distinction between, say, teal and aquamarine in the visual spectrum. not everyone can hear that distinction at all (tone deafness) and not everyone who can hear it will hear it reliably - there are degrees of tone deafness that stem from the simple fact that not everyone's brain thought it was worth building elaborate neural pathways in an area of the brain that didn't seem to be of much use in the environment the baby was born into.

i *do* think there are genes for singing and cricket. there are genes for everything.

well, yes and no. there are genes for lots of things in most people, most of which never get activated because the environmental cues aren't there. most individuals have the potential for many different traits in their genotype; however, that doesn't mean that all of those traits are going to become manifest in their phenotype.

the idea of being born w/a tabula rasa is completely outdated; it's been proven wrong by the myriad separated twin studies.

not really. the value of the twin studies is hotly debated and not nearly conclusive. personally, i don't find them terribly convincing for anything really huge.

i think, in general, genetic determinism falls short because it glosses over the fact that not every genetic trait manifests.

for example, virtually all humans have the gene for lactose intolerance. however, it isn't activated until after weaning for fairly obvious reasons (i.e. we're mammals and we'd all have died as infants). however, in those cultures where drinking (cow, goat, etc) milk is common after infancy, the gene is never activated in most people and so, because of environmental factors, most people are not lactose intolerant even though genetic determinism would predict that virtually all of them "should" be.

also, i've recently learned (from my oh-so-smart girlfriend the bio-anthro diva) that humans have an unusually low degree of genetic diversity within the species. apparently, you can take two random humans from anywhere in the population, and chances are that they will have more genes in common than, say, two orangutans with the same parents. this is generally believed to be proof that we've had a massive die-off in the recent (in evolutionary terms) past, but as a result, it makes arguments about differences within the human population based on the idea of genetic difference almost moot, since, by comparison to most other comparable lifeforms, there aren't any significant genetic differences within the human population.

identical twins, separated at birth, raised in totally different environments, will have similar mannerisms, political views, skills, etc. even their degree of religiousness is similar.

they're not really totally different environments, though. AFAIK, there aren't really a lot of studies where one twin is raised in downtown Chicago by investment bankers and one is dropped in Papua New Guinea to be raised by the locals. i suspect that, if you did, you'd end up with two radically different people in every respect. by human standards, of course.
 
 
diz
19:48 / 17.06.03
And what if, prior to any stimulus, a particular region of the brain is more developed than another due to genetic variance?

the embryo is receiving stimuli which affect subsequent development prior to the devlopment of the brain in utero. when we talk about "environmental factors" in early development, that includes the uterine environment.

Isn't that a form of talent, in the form of simply having more 'circuits' to work with in a given area such as hand/eye coordination?

i would agree that having more "circuits" in certain areas of your brain constitutes a form of "natural talent." however, there's no point at which there are "circuits" when environmental factors aren't shaping that development.

given that, it's essentially impossible to tell how many circuits there "would have been" based solely on the genes, because there's no such thing as a "neutral" environment.

to a certain extent, asking what genes would do "on their own" outside of environmental influences, since genes don't do anything at all outside of environmental influences. outside of the right environmental circumstances, DNA is just a bunch of dead proteins. it only does anything worth talking about in conjunction with an environment, and really has no "purpose" (really loaded term here, i know, but run with it) other than to respond to that environment.

basically, what i'm saying is that the whole nature vs nurture thing (which, let's be honest, is what we're getting into here) is something of a false dichotomy. an organism can only do things within the limits of its genes, but genes don't do anything outside of an environment. furthermore, there's more info packed into the human genome than any human actually needs to function, so only those parts of the genome that are triggered by environmental cues are really relevant. it's also worth pointing out that, taken as a whole, the human being is an immensely complex system, and so small changes in the environment, especially at the right moments in development, can ripple into huge changes in terms of which genes manifest and how.

i think that anyone who argues that either genetics or environment are absolutes (i.e. Quantum's argument that it's all learned behavior or praying mantis' that it's all genetically determined) misunderstands the extreme delicacy and complexity of the relationship between genes and environment.

i'm right on the edge of going off on a tangent into a bunch of mystical hoo-hah about form and being or yin and yang or Buddhism and non-duality here, but maybe that would be more fit for Magick or the Head Shop.
 
 
Quantum
10:03 / 18.06.03
If the playing field was completely level in a biological sense, how could natural selection have any effect on the species? (Mirror)

Native speakers of the same age category will always be better at the language, simply because they've had more practice at it. (Cusm)

the idea of being born w/a tabula rasa is completely outdated

i think that anyone who argues that either genetics or environment are absolutes (i.e. Quantum's argument that it's all learned behavior or praying mantis' that it's all genetically determined) misunderstands the extreme delicacy and complexity of the relationship between genes and environment (dizfactor)

Perhaps some clarification of my position is called for.

FIRSTLY everybody is influenced by Nature AND Nurture, that argument has been and gone as far as I am concerned. We're not blank slates and we're not preprogrammed biological robots, of course.

So the argument moves to their relatively weighted influences.

What I'm saying is that skill acquisition is determined by practice alone.
The practice is caused by motivation primarily, and that motivation is caused by personality- which is influenced by Nature/Nurture.

The end effect for us is the presence of talent, regardless of its origin. (Cusm)
I am agreeing with Cusm here, the end result seems to us like talent, but by saying this we're admitting that talent is acquired and not innate- so you can teach your baby to be talented.


My 'political' motivation is to show people that they are not the victims of anti-talent, if you see what I mean, the notion of having to be born gifted to succeed at something is false and restricts people's ambitions. There seems to be an attitude on this thread that it's too late for us now, our skill areas are set in stone because we're adults- that's bollocks. I could go out tomorrow and learn chinese, and in twenty years time could speak it like an adult (of course I won't be as good as a native speaker, they've had more practice). Or I could learn to be an accountant, or a mountain climber, or play the cello etc etc. the world is the mollusc of my choice.

I am against the idea of Innate Talent because it makes no sense. How can you be born with a skill? Ever seen a baby do anything like play the piano or kick a football? Of course not, they have to learn motor skills, to speak, to understand their perceptions and make sense of the world. Once they've learnt those skills we all have, they are already individuals with their own likes and dislikes, and will do some things more (and get better at them) and some less (and be worse at them). Anyone want to defend innate talent?

Maybe I should have called this thread 'You can learn to be Talented'.
 
 
We're The Great Old Ones Now
10:24 / 18.06.03
Yes, you could go out and learn Chinese, but the level you might reach in twenty years differs from the level I would, because we are different. I speak three languages apart from English, you may speak more or less. That means we have different levels of practice in attaining language skill. You may be musically adept - which I am not - and therefore better able to judge the tonalities of Chinese. Or you may never have studied another tongue, or even the building blocks of English.

The starting blocks are not even. Our personalities are not the same, our skills are not the same. I didn't pick learning a language for my example in this thread, I picked mathematics. Why? Because maths daunts me, and learning a language, even one as reputedly fiendish as Chinese (be it Mandarin, Cantonese, Fookienese, or whatever) does not. It's possible that my skill at learning would entirely trump your musical skill, and you'd reach my level at five years only after ten - or vice versa. Is that a skill I was born with? Of course not. Is it a skill to which I was predisposed by genetics or physical development? Perhaps - there was some work done a couple of years ago suggesting that certain brain formations lend themselves to creativity or other traits (such as some forms of mental illness).

I don't want to defend 'innate talent', because I think the term 'innate' is dangerously unclear. What does it mean? Born-in? Genetic? Part and parcel of an identity?

You haven't really engaged with my concerns about personality surgery, either...
 
  

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