The Myth of Talent

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Currently reading 'Bounce' The myth of talent and the power of practice by Matthew Syed. I would recommend to anyone who is a fan of any sport.

Matthew Syed is a former professional table tennis player turned sports journalist. He claims, and backs up that talent does not exist. It is through hours and hours of practice that separates the best from the rest. He calls it the 'iceberg illusion' we only see the end of what is years and years and hours upon hours of training building up to that very moment.

He goes on to say it is also just circumstantial, his parents happened to buy him a table tennis table and set it up in the garage, and every day after school he and his brother would play hours upon hours against each other, then he was seen playing at school where they spotted his 'talent', which he says was just the fact he was practising every day. This coach then took him to a table tennis club that was around the corner, where he developed his skills further. This all just fell into place for him, garage with a table, a coach that specialised in table tennis and a club that happened to be in his area. No talent got him there, just hours and hours of practice and circumstance.

He goes onto to make some startling arguments, and before reading this I could not accept that talent did not exist. However, 2/3 pages in my mind was already swaying.

So ask you, does talent really exist?

The myth of hard work. Pfft! Everyone can be a winner if they work hard. The reverse of this is that anyone who isn't a "winner" is a lazy layabout and deserves a kick. Politically this is very useful.

So is eugenics the way forward? Was Galton correct all along? Should we close down the education system and improve the gene sequencing to identify embryos with the correct DNA chains?

Does the exception disprove the general rule? About 10,000 hours is what it takes to become an "expert" in your chosen field - or at least a competency that will be good enough to gain some form of employment. Of course 10,000 hours is not going to allow you to grow an extra arm or grow two foot taller - that would be just silly.

So what is Roger Federer - is he a Mozart, a George Michael, an autistic savant?

Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration. Thomas Edison.

Edison stole most of his ideas from his rival Tesla though didn't he?
. Pretty contentious area about what he actually invented- he was good at soundbites though, evidentally. Back on topic- People in today's society like to say you can do anything and be anything if you try hard enough. Though the motivation is great and the concept works to an extent, it's not really true and the way it is being pushed is harmful to groups and individuals of people. The final factor which is often overlooked is luck, frankly.

And why bring up Eugenics? Nobody was advocating that. If you were to focus on the genes of a certain sport, I'm certain you'd maximise the ability of athletes in it. At the expense of everything else, as genes that make you good at prolonged exercise and short bursts of intense exercise, just to pick 2 very simple and similar things, are largely antagonistic to each other. That's ignoring the pointlessness of wasting genetic manipulation on sport given its larger ramifications. And you'd have to isolate all the relevant genes first anyway.

If you think that a 5'0" man with the same training as a 7'0" man is likely to better the latter at basketball, you are welcome to that belief (a ridiculously exaggerated argument I know), I'll stick to mine thanks. The same applies in tennis- the movements and coordination involved are learned skills but even then different people's nervous systems will be better at learning them. Practice and the ability to do so effectively and the wish to do so to become the best also have genetic components

Sorry Nore just read your post properly and saw you were playing the neutral mediator rather than taking either side

Even if you don't agree I really recommend it as its an awesome read. Even though iv stuck up for his premise because its a really well made point, I still think that how did Federer begin to play the way he does, Nadal is all practise but Federers style I don't think comes from practice that comes naturally.

That's all right. Maybe science will save us all in the form of genetic engineering. You add the "double handed backhand" DNA chain to a virus. Infect the appropriate wannabe tennis star with the virus. The virus splices the DNA chain into the cells of the wannabe, and hey presto, Roger Federer MkII is generated.

How are genetics any more or less inherently scientific than practice?

O I am advocating the 10,000 hours training etc, but it seems that most on this thread put it down to natural genetics. Hence I am offering solutions to those that are worried about their genes.

It's a mix. Hard training means anyone putting in enough hours could probably be a professional sportsman- exactly how good you can be will have elements in how cleverly you've trained and your genes. The hours put in early in life will be vital but are only part of the puzzle. It may be skewed for the author of the book as his sport isn't quite as popular within the UK as, say, football is, where his early life training probably wouldn't have taken him so far. As a rule I say if there are several factors clearly involved in something (ie anything in real life), all of those factors have to be "good" to get the best result. And absolutes are almost always wrong/beaten by something in the middle.

CAS wrote:Even if you don't agree I really recommend it as its an awesome read. Even though iv stuck up for his premise because its a really well made point, I still think that how did Federer begin to play the way he does, Nadal is all practise but Federers style I don't think comes from practice that comes naturally.

Nadal = Nurture? Federer = Nature? Ha ha! No wonder we can't stop talking about them...

Also I have a great idea for an experiment. Choose 100 random 3 year olds. Give them all 10,000 hours tennis training. No more, no less. Then make them play a tennis tournament. Who will win? Will it be a draw? Will it be down to luck?

How do I get funding and does anyone have a three year old that they wouldn't mind being experimented on?

I've moved the rest of this topic to General Discussion -> Off Topic.
This thread can continue with more tennis-related posts.

Julius, did you get my PM

btw for you guys: https://www.606v2.com/t34999-split-from-tennis-section

The money system only exists because a State can't function without monopoly control of the means of exchange. That's why the bank system will always be bailed out, it's an arm of the State.
The solution is a free market in currency; simply use whatever you choose to either store value or issue promises. Gold if you want, or promises of returns of labour, or anything. It just means the State can't function, trade would happen better than ever.

On land thats more tricky as its fine if people own the improvement they add to the land (like a house) but not the land itself. They then have to reach agreement with others if they want exclusive use. The problem is it requires a level of rationality that people have not had to learn. You can't really evolve to this outcome but it's a logical condition that's not based on lies.

All this is why I regret the demise of America; the founders of the Constitution knew the dangers of Central Banking and it wasn't in existence until the early 20th century. Once they got a Central Bank everyone effectively starts working for the State.

Oops! Posted during move. Dunno how to do that Julius! Can you?

bogbrush wrote:Oops! Posted during move. Dunno how to do that Julius! Can you?

Julius is currently in the process of a very long reply to my PM I'm afraid

BB, I've quoted it now.

djlovesyou wrote:It's easy to discount talent if 'genetics' doesn't count as talent.

Not counting genetics as talent? Odd thing to say. In any sensible definition of "talent" genetics would have to play a part, and in some definitions it might be all due to genes.

Seems an odd discussion in general when we're talking about physical talents which require our physiology to achieve them...and all physiology is underpinned by our genetic code. Talent is inextricably linked to coding....just as, for example on the flip side, many diseases are. Its our genetic coding thats the basis of our individuality...we're simply not the same so why do we expect people to be born with similar "talents" at any given pursuit?

That was the point I was making.

The OP said that when people started talking about natural physiological make-up it was 'getting into genetics', as if genetics was something different from natural talent and wasn't relevant to the discussion.

My point was really that genetics is always going to be important in deciding who is going to be good at various different activities, with some it being a bigger factor than others.

Posted on the convergent thread;

Im just trying to narrow down to what talent really means.

Seems to me that to have any lye talent must be DNA whereas everything else is nurture. In that case it's meaningless to differentiate between any player or to guess what share anyone gets their performance from. It's just a false analysis.

The problem with the argument that there is no 'talent' element in sporting excellence (or excellence in other fields) is that it simply doesn't chime with our everyday experience - there are some things that each of us are inherently better at or can grasp the basics more quickly. For most sports, I can pick up a bat, racket or whatever and do reasonably well after a few attempts whereas my nephew simply cannot understand and visualise the movements required to achieve the same.

However, two personal examples:
1 - Cricket: As a kid, you start to try and learn batting and bowling at the same time, and with equal weighting to their importance. Batting I got pretty much straight away, bowling even 27 years later 'mediocre' would be a genereous description.

2 - Snooker / Pool. It will always feel to me as though I'm trying to hold on to a live snake rather than a cue, despite having played a lot over the years. It's simply something I have no natural aptitude for.

Perhaps a problem with the Syed hypothesis is that he is discounting the role that talent (inherent aptitude) plays in selecting the activity that you then hone your skills at in the first place (so there is an inherent selection bias towards the things you do well). After all, 10000 hours equates to 3 hours a day every day for near enough 10 years, and you aren't going to put in that commitment to something that you aren't seeing serious results after the first few tens to hundreds of hours.

Excellent point dummyhalf, agree with it completely if you don't have aptitude for something it is going to be very hard to work hard enough to overcome that hurdle. Kids when they have some success at a sport generally want to participate and work harder, if they aren't good at something they usually don't spend thousands of hours anyway honing a skill which does not come naturally to them.

Painting, sculpture are some areas where 'talent' can be refined, like a diamond in the rough. It requires a master craftsman to shape a diamond and glorify it's inherent capabilities.

There are some genetic aspects to long-distance running. The Ethiopian and Kenyan distance runners are an example of 'genetic' nature being nurtured.

Just ask Abebe Bikila who is Onni Niskanen.

Since Freddie Mercury was mentioned...

A friend from the time recalls that he had "an uncanny ability to listen to the radio and replay what he heard on piano".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freddie_Mercury

This was Courier and Agassi's exchange about talent before and after Courier thrashed Agassi at RG 1992. Amazingly Agassi won Wimbledon within the month.

I've always remembered this exchange from the days when Agassi was (or didn't hide the fact that he was) a jerk. http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=110&dat=19920606&id=Rg1QAAAAIBAJ&sjid=RlUDAAAAIBAJ&pg=5630,5449256

socal1976 wrote:Excellent point dummyhalf, agree with it completely if you don't have aptitude for something it is going to be very hard to work hard enough to overcome that hurdle. Kids when they have some success at a sport generally want to participate and work harder, if they aren't good at something they usually don't spend thousands of hours anyway honing a skill which does not come naturally to them.

Good point Re Snooker/Pool.

To be competitive in such sports/activities requires a level of physiology or mental edge that you develop from a young age. You can train for 10 hours a day and still not be as good as some who train 5 hours, you can't teach ability after a certain age.

socal/dummy, that was also exactly the point I made in point 4 on Saturday:

https://www.606v2.com/t34964-the-myth-of-talent#1549577

People negate that you have to have talent/ability in the first place to be interested enough to continue to do it...and to have mental strength as a talent to put in the 10,000 hours!