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The Expert Mind
Vicissidude writes "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. In fact, 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. It is no coincidence that the incidence of chess prodigies multiplied after László Polgár published a book on chess education. The number of musical prodigies underwent a similar increase after Mozart's father did the equivalent two centuries earlier."
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.
Except that at a young age, are not tremendous ability and precocity the same thing?
Push Button, Receive Bacon
While I believe, definitely, that it has to take work to master something, and that work is the defining characteristic of a grand master, it's also important to have some inborn ability. You can't be a chess master or genius mathematician or amazing athlete without some genetic preponderance toward intelligence or coordination or speed. This becomes extremely evident in bodybuilding; genetic makeup matters big time. Yes, I realize the article is focused on intellectual pursuits, but the same thing is still true.
I used to carry a bottle of whiskey for snake bite. And two snakes. -Nefarious Wheel
You will never find a "master" at what they do that does not practice and have lots of experience. That is, of course, a given. I don't think any one says otherwise - to a large extent the article implies it. No coach thinks raw talent alone will win the olympics, it takes practice, practice, practice, and more practice.
It also requires Chess to be a near perfect look into intellect and ability - the author obviously understands this as roughly half the article is an attemp to prove it. If this is not true then the whole theory falls apart and I do not think enough is shown for this to be true (not being in that field I do not know if it is considered a given, but again I doubt it is. I can not see chess having much bearing to archery).
I can assure you that innate talent exists. It is not hard to find. I have two fairly good archery students - one shoots only the one day of our course and the other shoots at home every day. If hard work and focus was the deciding factor the wrong one is getting much higer scores.
We can all find people in our own schooling that exemplifies this. In science/math courses I did very very little and was generally one of the higer grades. I knew quite a number of people who were obsessed and spent WAY more time than I ever did who never came anywhere close to my ability. I knew people who surpassed me that worked less and some that worked more. Of course I still spent quite a bit of time at it. I could not learn how something worked without reading about it or taking it apart, yet I needed only to do so once or twice. Some could do it hundreds of times and never get it, some would only need to get halfway before they understood it. That's innate talent.
It's so trivial to find people that break this theory I can not see how it is talked about much. Obviously hard work will get you a long ways, pure talent on never using it is horrid, and pure talent with hard work is what makes world champions. I can (and have) practiced enough to be a champion in Archery, I'm nowhere close and I'll never be - I just can not hold the bow steady enough. No amount of practice will overcome it.
Coaches and teachers say this because after running thousands of people through thier programs it is obvious that a thing called "talent" exists.
And, lastly, they gloss over that all of thier examples were considered prodigies even before they invested years and years of hard work, to be a world champion requires both. The study pre-assumes that talent is the same, notes that practice is different so it *must* be the cause (how can you say that with more than one variable?). How about we try and hold everything that affects the outcome constant that we can (practice, initial novice level, user motivation, etc) and see if everyone performs at the same level. I bet they do not. Right now there are too many variables from the study listed to draw any conclusion - talent could very well still play a large role, it has not been ruled out. Just as it is obvious that hard work is needed to be a world champion it should be obvious that not including talent will make talent irrelevant in thier study. Unless you control or adjust for a variable you *can not* make any conclsuion on how much it affects your outcome.
------- Sorry about the spelling, I suffer from two problems. Dyslexia makes it difficult to spell well, lazy makes it
Theres a fundamental truth different people pick different things up more quickly than others. Some are "naturally" good at math and others at sport (and some at both but not nitting). Not everyone's going to react like Mozart to the same music training.
:-)
So if you're good at something from the start you're going to get more positive feedback earlier on and you're going to get further and progress more quickly through the same training. But fundamentally yes both the gifted person and the talentless hack are going to need to be exposed to the same tools, techniques and ideas to progress in anything. Mozart wouldn't have gotten anywhere with the piano and orchestras if he'd grown up in a culture that didn't have pianos and orchestras. With his innate abilities perhaps he'd have been Africa's best drummer or a killer on the diggeri doo instead
Another thing. It's important to do things you're not good at for a couple of reasons. One is that some things you're not good at are fun...go to a karoke bar and you won't see people trying to perfect their world class opera voices. You don't even discover what you like if you don't try and life is there to be embraced and tasted. The other is that not everyone progresses at the same rate. It is possible to spend weeks (but probably not more than a few weeks) and make a breakthrough in understanding that suddenly means you improve dramatically even if you're never going to be world class.
However yes, nothing replaces hard work and training. If you're good at something without these you could be much better with the correct focused training.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
I guess spending lots of time playing counts as training. . .
Yes, there's even a word for "lots of time playing." The word is:
"Practice."
You might have heard an aphorism using that word.
I'll bet he wasn't very good at the subjects he ignored at Columbia. There just might be a relationship.
KFG
This article is going to bring up the subject of formal study vs. hard work. It's very simple: You will get nowhere without hard work. But you will go farther and faster with formal study.
Example: Dizzy Gillespie was an amazing trumpet player, but the way he played was all wrong. Does this mean that our idea of the "right" way to play is wrong? No; Dizzy succeeded despite playing the wrong way, simply because he practiced so goddamned hard. But if you want to learn to play the trumpet, should you just shirk all advice and just practice? Of course not. You'll be a better player if you don't have obstacles - and the "right" way is "right" because it has fewer obstacles. Just don't think you can relax, because you'll get blown away by those who are working hard.
Now take for example the computer programmer. The computer programmer who studies on his own not only has to figure out what is going on from scratch (this is actually beneficial), but he has has to figure out what to study. An education in computer science will prepare this programmer for that. But all too often the computer programmer with an education uses this as a crutch - they soon become stagnant.
FAQ
Can you succeed without working hard? No.
So, do you need education? Maybe not, but it helps.
Would you be better at what you want to do if you have education? Undoubtedly.
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
That's strange, I always thought capatilist retoric was that we are all born equal so all have an equal chance in life.
Socilist retoric is that we are all born differerent but should be treated equal so those with more tallent should support those with lesser tallent because it's not the fault of those with lesser tallent that they cannot do so well.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I disagree - I believe people can be very different at their talents - the minds of different people can work in very different ways.
No matter how hard I tried, I was always terrible at soccer and at juggling. I just don't have enough control of my body for that. On the other hand, learning mathematics has always been effortless for me, and I can "view" in my head 3 and 4-dimensional functions with ease. Regardless of how hard I try, I am definitely NOT good at picking up the correct accent of foreign languages - even languages that I have been speaking for decades. Other people can sound like native speakers in a couple of years. I spent lots hours trying to learn chess, and just about anybody could defeat me. At Go, in scarcely a few months I became good enough to hold my own with most players in my city.
The belief that "education does all" is the kind of belief you have before you see enough students, and especially, before you have children. After that, you know very well that kids are born with very definite personalities and abilities - you can educate them, but the personality and basic abilities are there from day 1, perhaps not fully expressed, but there.
Education, or training, just feeds the prepared mind or body.
The idea that they just worked harder, or rather, better than you is uncomfortable. It means that you're just lazy, don't have the necessary drive or don't know how to train.
It's much easier to believe that they are just innately better and it's not really your fault that you can't reach their level.
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I played trombone for about 10 years, starting in elementary school ending in university, and I observed that while hard work and study were a major, major factor in how good you were, talent was necessary. You had to have a certian "it". I can't put a name to it or tell you how to check, but it had to be there if you were ever to be really good. I think it most likely had to do with a talent in hearing music. I could tell you, just by listening to the tone (sound charestic) of a player if they had "it" or not.
If they did, they had the potential to be quite good. How good they were depended in a large way on how hard they worked, but that "it" allowed for them to do it. If they didn't, no amount of work could make up for it. There was just a wall that they could not surpass with any amount of effort.
In highschool I saw this in quite a pronounced fashion. I had "it", something I discovered in 7th grade. I could produce a tone that sounded good, sounded like the kind of sound professionals get. I don't mean I sounded that good, but I mean it was the same kind of sound. My 2nd chair player didn't have "it". His tone was blatty and sounded more akin to a beginner. I felt really sorry for the guy because he busted his ass. I kinda slacked off, as I like to do, and so while I was good I wasn't a star or anything. I'm sure I could have been much better if I'd been willing to commit more time to it (though in retrospect I spent quite a bit of time on it).
He worked his ASS off. I mean I couldn't believe how much he practised, at least 2 hours a night usually more. He really, really wanted to be better, and in particular wanted to be better than me. He just couldn't do it though. The technical aspects he could get down wutie well through all the repetition but the musicality never came. He had private teachers try to help, I tried to help, but it didn't do any good. He lacked "it", he lacked the talent to ever really get good.
Same thing in university. There was a hard cutoff in trombones at the 4th chair. The first 4 all had "it", we all sounded good. Differeing skills of course, but all sounded as a trombone should. The next 5, nope. It was just painfully obvious. I could switch with the and 2nd, 3rd, or 4th chairs on a solo or something and it would work. They didn't sound just like me, but they sounded right. However sub in any of the others and man, you'd notice straight off.
I think it may have something to do with listening ability. There are things relating to that which can't be trained, like perfect pitch (the ability to identify the absolute pitch of a note with no context). It's not perfect pitch that is required (I don't have perfect pitch) but perhaps something like it.
Either way, I certianly don't disagree that being proficiten/an expert/a master requires a hell of a lot of work, in think in many cases talent is necessary, but not sufficient, condition. Maybe it's genetic, maybe it's something that can only be learned during a critical developmental phase, either way if you don't have it, you'll never be great, no matter how hard you try.
You're interested in the subject, you learn it without seeing that learning as study. You work just as hard at it but don't see it as work, it's fun, your motivation is higher than people who see it as work.
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Asperger's Syndrome demonstrates than a predilection to develop narrow intellectual interests and to set up your own personal Suzuki School, is for some, innate. I was pissed off when I read this article. I have mild Asperger's Syndrome. I and people like me develop narrow intense interests as part of our AS. In our case it is obvious. We are born to become experts, in our field of interest. My interest is Mineralogy. I just finished a PhD in geology. As a child and adolescent, more so then now, I was happily obsessed with Mineralogy and collecting minerals. I can now identify my entire collection behind my back, by touch, and I can identify ~750 different minerals without needing a text book. If you made an average child adhered to my self directed mineralogy education program, you would possibly have been done for child cruelty, but I enjoyed it and would not have change a thing. If I was into Chess I would have been a damn good Chess player. If I had been into Mathematics, I would have been a damn good mathematician. I was into Physics, I would have been a damn good Physicist etc. Bobby Fisher, Mozart, Einstein, Newton and others. People who are obsessive, single minded, often self-thought and are socially isolated/eccentric. They have all been speculated to have had AS (or Tourettes Syndrome in the case of Mozart).
"I was taught it this way, I'm good at it, so that's the right way of teaching it." Really, what "it" is doesn't matter. This belief is held by language teachers, sports coaches, music teachers and many more. This belief is then supported with examples of pupils/students who are also good at their particular "it".
Over the last hundred years, many many teachers have studied teaching or their disciplines in new ways which have disproved this commonly-believed falsehood.
The first example I'm aware of is described in Harold Taylor's book The Pianist's Talent. In it, he examines the work of a turn-of-the-19th/20th-century Parisian piano teacher by the name of Raymond Thiberge. Thiberge was vexed by the vastly differing -- even contradictory -- advice coming from the various piano conservatories in Paris, so he went to all the individual conservatories for further study. In one, he would be told that there should be tension in the front of the forearm; in the next, tension in the back of the forearm. Thiberge was blind, so to study another's technique he had to touch them. When he lay his hands on any of the teachers, he found that they all had one technique: no tension anywhere.
The teachers were not successful because they followed their professed technique, but because they didn't. Worse, their pupils who they used as proof of the efficacy of their techniques also used a completely different technique than that which they were taught. Worse still, teachers were dismissing their failures as not the teacher's fault -- they were simply untalented -- while the reason they failed was because they were doing what they were told. To quote shlmco, another \.er: Too many people think practice makes perfect, when in reality, most people who do so simply perfect their mistakes. In another example, over the last few decades, top-level swimming coaching has changed dramatically, leading to athletes capable of such incredible feats as the Thorpedo's alleged ability to cross a swimming pool in two strokes. The trigger for this was the invention of the underwater tracking camera now so commonly used in major competitive events. Traditional teaching of front-crawl stroke said that the arms should travel in an "S-stroke" and that the fingers should be closed against each other. Coaches who were former gold-medal winners professed this technique as the technique that had won them their fame, but when the cameras started rolling, suddenly people could see that their hands were travelling in an almost straight line, and that their fingers were slightly apart. It became noticed that coaches were ignoring their star students' "non-standard" technique because they were doing so well, but were constantly "correcting" the technique of their other students, hindering their progress.
I was discussing all this with a Scottish country dance teacher recently, trying to demonstrate that another commonly-held notion -- the idea that there are different teaching techniques suited to different people -- was at best an overstatement, at worst a complete falacy, and in any case a result of bad teaching practice. At this point he tied it in to his own personal experience -- one tricky dance-step, the "pas-de-bas", which his student's could never get, although he taught it as all the top teachers do. He eventually came to the conclusion that it was a teaching problem, not a learning problem, so he stopped to study it. At every possible opportunity, he watched the feet of the top dancers until he saw what they were doing and realised that it was not what he was teaching, but it is what he was doing. It is now a point of frustration to him that the teaching fraternity continues to teach it incorrectly when it is perfectly possible to teach it correctly.
Effort will always fail to bear fruit if misdirected. Concientious hard work will make matters worse if the teaching is wrong. In fact, as the Inner Game philosophy is now trying to popularise,
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
"Andy Soltis of Chess Life remarked on something like the 8-year limit whereupon nearly infinite amounts of continued work produce *no* further gains. This presumably relates to where natural talent leaves off."
Or where it's increasingly difficult to find the information necessary to progress. example...
Starting at 0% of the subject, 100% is available.
50% knowledge, 50% is available to learn.
90% knowledge learned only 10% is available to learn.
99% knowledge, only 1% is available to be learned.
As you progress it becomes harder and harder to find the information nesessary to progress so progress plateus. Extraordinary drive and motivation is necessary to search out those extra 0.5% and 0.1% bits of skill/knowledge because you have to search/train constantly for little reward.
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A lot of people are pointing out that natural ability vs. training isn't a boolean, so the article oversimplifies. But a lot of people are also saying "Natural ability is necessary, I know because I spent 10 years doing [whatever]" or "I saw people who spent 10 years working on [whatever] and they still aren't the best."
That's making very unwarranted assumptions: no one is saying that it's enough to work for 10 years at something, no matter how you work at it. People who drive every day for 10 years still aren't typically world-class drivers, because they aren't spending that daily driving time doing anything that would lead to real improvement. Even people who work hard to improve at something, for years, can still make little or no progress because of how they are working or being taught, completely independent of any innate ability they may have.
I believe in innate ability, and I think it would be very difficult to honestly argue it doesn't exist at all. But I think it can be overstated -- as one of the other commenters noted, in some disciplines the experts don't do things the way they tell their students to (and as a budding mathematician who is appalled with the state of mathematical exposition today, I think the same is true in that field -- it would be very easy for someone with a lot of ability in math to nevertheless become discouraged by the way higher math is presented). Apparent "innate ability" in such cases may just mean that someone happened upon the correct approach to something despite, or at least independently of, their "official" training. If that's true, it doesn't mean natural talent doesn't exist, but it does suggest that there are many more "naturally talented" people than we are aware of because of our limited understanding and education.
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