Author Topic: Do you believe in talent?  (Read 12490 times)

dachs

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Do you believe in talent?
« on: January 15, 2015, 02:11:36 PM »
Hey there!!!

What do you think, does something like talent exist? Are there people who are just better at something without having practiced more? Of course, if you are 2 meters tall you will probably have advantages in basketball etc, but what about other fields, like maths, art or even being mustachian?

Is it genetic, education or a mixture of everything?

sol

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #1 on: January 15, 2015, 02:22:46 PM »
No, talent does not exist.  Skills are acquired by practice.

My 11 year old tells me he has no talent for football, which is apparently the sole criteria for popularity among 11 year old boys.  I tell him that if other kids are better at football than he is, it is because they have more practice and experience than he does.  If he played catch instead of Xbox, he'd be better at football too. 

My wife disagrees.  She thinks the 11 year old football star is good because he was better at 9 and at 5, as if a 5 year old had never run or played with a ball before.

lostamonkey

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #2 on: January 15, 2015, 02:31:40 PM »
"Skills" are both genetic and learned through practice. Some people will be smarter or more athletic with equal levels of practice and learning.

Sol: Your son would probably be a lot better at football if he played regularly. He might just be genetically unlucky and even if he practised every day he would still be a poor player compared to his peers. The football star might not have played football at 5 but he probably was faster, stronger, and had quicker reflexes than your son at that age.
« Last Edit: January 15, 2015, 02:35:47 PM by lostamonkey »

dachs

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #3 on: January 15, 2015, 02:44:07 PM »
Especially in sports it is evident that the selection process favours people who were born in the first quarter of a year since they have to compete against people who might be a almost one year younger. At age 5 that might be a big difference. And since those people get selected for the better teams they get more practice. It's quite interesting, check out any professional sports team and you will see that the majority of the players are born early in a year. ;) Still, being born on 1. of January doesn't make you good at sports neither.

MandyM

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #4 on: January 15, 2015, 03:29:34 PM »
I believe in talent. I took piano lessons for 11 years while growing up. At the end, I was decent enough, but every song I learned was by hammering it out, note by note, over and over. My HS boyfriend played less than I did but was MUCH better. I was envious of how natural he was.

geekette

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #5 on: January 15, 2015, 03:56:01 PM »
Huge difference between talent and skills.  Skills can be learned, but I don't care how much I practice, I will never be a world class figure skater.  And I was born in early March.

sol

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #6 on: January 15, 2015, 04:28:25 PM »
Talent is just what you call skills that someone already has.

Eric

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #7 on: January 15, 2015, 05:15:06 PM »
Yes, talent is definitely a thing, especially when it comes to activities involving hand-eye coordination like sports or music.  It just clicks with some people way easier than others.  Of course you have to add a lot of work to that talent to make it worth anything though.

Pigeon

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #8 on: January 15, 2015, 05:38:57 PM »
I absolutely believe in talent. I have a very musical daughter. From the time she was very young, it was obvious she had musical ability. She can hear differences in tones that are identical to me. To become an accomplished violinist took practice, absolutely, but her teacher knew right off she had talent.

ShortInSeattle

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #9 on: January 15, 2015, 05:55:11 PM »
Talent exists, but I believe it's a combination of passion, practice, and capability.

Passion and practice are available to all of us. Capability is a factor too, and it may be limited by our bodies or our cognitive abilities (you don't see too many 5 foot tall NBA players, or too many PhDs with a sub 80 IQ). The good news is that most of the things you might want to do in this world rely on rather ordinary capabilities.

So I *mostly* agree with Sol.  Talent is the word we assign to people who do something extraordinarily well. And it's something that we can choose to cultivate, at least 99% of the time.

At least that's how I see it.

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LalsConstant

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #10 on: January 15, 2015, 06:42:43 PM »
No, talent does not exist.  Skills are acquired by practice.

Agree with the latter sentence, former is incorrect imho.

See:

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=2IEfFSYouKUC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=multiple+intelligence+theory&ots=3-5N4P3MvW&sig=19eydH9hKhdvaM5HRKHnnmLcsqU#v=onepage&q=multiple%20intelligence%20theory&f=false

It can be measured scientifically. 

I have trouble believing physiology has no effect on capability myself.  You see it all the time in society.  Male engineers, sysadmins, construction workers, etc outnumber female ones for a very good reason, just as you can reverse this for teachers, nurses, and PHRs.  They've scanned male and female brains and mapped the way the synapses connect in thought patterns, they are different sizes, they have different neural pathways, etc. 

Similarly, if you cut out a piece of the brain that controls a certain function, that person loses the function but may otherwise be completely unaffected.  I call having a physiological advantage talent.

That said, effort probably matters a lot more than anything else but there you go.

SwordGuy

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #11 on: January 15, 2015, 07:06:27 PM »
There are "right ways" to do certain skills.  Most so-called "talent" is simply someone naturally (i.e., accidentally) choosing the right way without having been taught to do so or consciously choosing to do so after analyzing the situation.

Some talent is an above average physical ability one is born with.   

For most things, for most people, smart thinking, hard work and practice will outstrip talent.

Talent is real but it is less common than is usually believed and most certainly overrated because of that.

DecD

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #12 on: January 15, 2015, 09:23:02 PM »
In some things, yes.

For example, my 7 year old can't carry a tune even a tiny bit.  My 3 year old can hear a song once and sing it back to you with pretty decent pitch. 

That's not practice- that's an innate musical ear.  But I imagine that either of them would succeed at playing a musical instrument with determination & hard work, and neither of them would without it.

I'm a red panda

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #13 on: January 16, 2015, 07:23:12 AM »
I definitely believe in talent. But natural talent is wasted without practice, and enough hardwork can overcome lack of natural talent.

Pigeon

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #14 on: January 16, 2015, 07:56:59 AM »
I read the book Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell, which promotes the basic idea that the only reason people are exceptional at things is because they practice more.  It was a very interesting read, but it has sparked a great deal of debate among scientists, many of whom have pointed to evidence that practice is not everything, and in fact, only accounts for about a third of the difference between elite performers.

For a good article on the topic of talent, what it means and how it matters, see Ackerman, P. L. (2014). Nonsense, common sense, and science of expert performance: Talent and individual differences. Intelligence, 6.

lizzie

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #15 on: January 16, 2015, 08:46:10 AM »
%20theory&f=false
Male engineers, sysadmins, construction workers, etc outnumber female ones for a very good reason

Hmmm. Gosh. What COULD that reason be. I'm sure if I think really really hard with my ladybrain I could come up with a reason.

Couldn't possibly have anything to do with girls and women being bombarded with the SCIENCE FACT that they are bad at math and stuff. No, that couldn't be it.

I do seem to remember reading that neural pathways are developed through use. Which would seem to suggest that brain scans don't prove anything about innate ability. But what do I know, I'm just a dumb lady.

GetItRight

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #16 on: January 16, 2015, 09:40:17 AM »
I think there's some level of predisposition or ability with certain things. One thing that supports this is Autism Spectrum Disorder or ASD. That is Autism and Aspergers (mild autism). These people can be obsessive about numbers, order, logic, patterns, extensive information/detail (about specific things), and similar. Look at geeks and nerds who often fall somewhere on the ASD spectrum, typically they end up in successful careers in IT or engineering or other highly technical fields requiring logical thinking and problem solving skills, math, and similar skills. Also men are far more prevalent in these professions.

Look at the career choices of men vs women. Women tend to choose careers with more social interaction such as educators, counselors, healthcare, etc. Some of this may be genetic or biological predisposition and some of it may also be from a practical perspective for women who want to have children choosing careers which can offer more flexibility as women are tied down to the babies needs and schedule for a year or two.

I don't mean to imply that those with ASD are expert programmers or engineers out of the womb or anything of the sort, but a predisposition along with training and hard work. It's not like someone saying "You're so lucky to be talented with computers"... When in reality you spent a ridiculous amount of time learning, practicing, and gaining experience. Or "You're so lucky to have the money for <thing>" when in reality you educated yourself and made good choices that often weren't the easiest or most fulfilling option.
« Last Edit: January 16, 2015, 09:49:33 AM by GetItRight »

Jack

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #17 on: January 16, 2015, 09:41:31 AM »
I believe in talent.

Take computer programming, for instance: if you take a random person who's never programmed before and explain a few basic concepts to him (e.g. what an algorithm is, what a variable is, etc.) he will either immediately understand or he will never understand, no matter how much he tries to learn. Not only is this empirically proven, but I've seen it first-hand with my wife. She's in a career where knowing some basic javascript/flash/python scripting might be helpful (she's a computer artist), but she's attempted several online "intro to programming" classes (and I've tried to teach her myself) and it's completely hopeless.

Mississippi Mudstache

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #18 on: January 16, 2015, 09:43:05 AM »
In some things, yes.

For example, my 7 year old can't carry a tune even a tiny bit.  My 3 year old can hear a song once and sing it back to you with pretty decent pitch. 

That's not practice- that's an innate musical ear.  But I imagine that either of them would succeed at playing a musical instrument with determination & hard work, and neither of them would without it.

That's funny. My 3-year-old is the same way. She can sing almost any tune more accurately than my wife. That's not even a slight exaggeration. My wife has absolutely no memory for music.

To the OP's point, yes, I absolutely believe it talent, but I also believe that it's a poor substitute for hard work. I think that people who are initially more successful at a given endeavor than others are naturally more motivated to apply more time and effort to become even better at it.

OutBy40

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #19 on: January 16, 2015, 09:44:11 AM »
Hey there!!!

What do you think, does something like talent exist? Are there people who are just better at something without having practiced more? Of course, if you are 2 meters tall you will probably have advantages in basketball etc, but what about other fields, like maths, art or even being mustachian?

Is it genetic, education or a mixture of everything?

Without a shadow of a doubt, talent exists.  However, talent is not something that necessarily materializes from education or training.  On the contrary, people tend to discover their talents by trying different things - cooking, sports, contracting (building shit), fixing shit, whatever. 

For example, I'm not a very mechanical person.  If you give me something complex to put together - even with instructions - I will probably struggle a hell of a lot more than a person who is more gifted in that stuff.  But, tell me to go photograph something and make it look just fucking awesome, and I'm your guy.

DoubleDown

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #20 on: January 16, 2015, 09:46:45 AM »
Talent is just what you call skills that someone already has.

Talent is definitely a thing. Our brains and bodies have different capabilities, without any [reasonable] doubt.

Consider just the intelligence part of talent -- there is no way all the practice in the world would allow me to be as talented at theoretical physics as Albert Einstein. Mozart didn't become a genius composer because of all his practice prior to age 6.

Grog

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #21 on: January 16, 2015, 10:50:32 AM »
Talent is a measure of quickness: how quickly someone develop a new  skills: from  seconds to years

mak1277

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #22 on: January 16, 2015, 03:19:44 PM »
My 11 year old tells me he has no talent for football, which is apparently the sole criteria for popularity among 11 year old boys.  I tell him that if other kids are better at football than he is, it is because they have more practice and experience than he does.  If he played catch instead of Xbox, he'd be better at football too. 


Your last sentence is true.  If your son plays catch more he will improve at football.  Your first sentence, however, is not necessarily true.  If your son has limited athletic ability (talent) he may never be able to be good at football, only better than he is currently.

Specific to sports, there are certain things that are simply not possible to make happen just through practice.  I have played or coached baseball for almost 20 years...I can tell you with certainty that you can have the perfect pitching mechanics, but unless you have the proper physical gifts (talent) you are never going to throw 95 miles per hour.  You cannot practice enough to make yourself have that ability if you don't have it as a talent.

sol

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #23 on: January 16, 2015, 03:30:19 PM »
I can tell you with certainty that you can have the perfect pitching mechanics, but unless you have the proper physical gifts (talent) you are never going to throw 95 miles per hour.  You cannot practice enough to make yourself have that ability if you don't have it as a talent.

Everyone keeps saying this like it's fact, but it's so demonstrably wrong.  Talent is what you call skill that kid has already acquired. 

To illustrate the point, if I show you a room that contains 100 one-day-old babies, can you tell me which of them has this mythical pitching talent?  Or musical talent?  Of course not, because all new babies are equivalently useless little sacks of squirmy shit.

But at some point between one day old and ten years old, some of those babies will get more practice than others.  Mommy will sing more bedtime songs, or junior will spend more time playing with his brother in the back yard, and those experiences will led to a clearly superior skill rating compared to other kids of the same age.  Talent has nothing to do with it, or you'd be able to tell me which baby would have it.

I'm not arguing that some kids aren't better at things that others.  I'm arguing that there is a reason some kids are better than others, and it's not some magical bullshit intangible hocus pocus that we point to in order make ourselves feel better when someone else is better at something than we are. 

Read any sports biography in the world, and you'll see a story of an obsessed kid who spent thousands of hours practicing after every other kid had gone home.  Read any musician's biography and it's the same story.  The people who turn out to be virtuoso performers get that way by putting in the hours at an early age and then sticking with it all through the ranks.  Even Mozart wasn't born a musical genius, unless you believe he had a tiny piano in the womb.


mak1277

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #24 on: January 16, 2015, 03:44:22 PM »
I can tell you with certainty that you can have the perfect pitching mechanics, but unless you have the proper physical gifts (talent) you are never going to throw 95 miles per hour.  You cannot practice enough to make yourself have that ability if you don't have it as a talent.

Everyone keeps saying this like it's fact, but it's so demonstrably wrong.  Talent is what you call skill that kid has already acquired. 

To illustrate the point, if I show you a room that contains 100 one-day-old babies, can you tell me which of them has this mythical pitching talent?  Or musical talent?  Of course not, because all new babies are equivalently useless little sacks of squirmy shit.

But at some point between one day old and ten years old, some of those babies will get more practice than others.  Mommy will sing more bedtime songs, or junior will spend more time playing with his brother in the back yard, and those experiences will led to a clearly superior skill rating compared to other kids of the same age.  Talent has nothing to do with it, or you'd be able to tell me which baby would have it.

I'm not arguing that some kids aren't better at things that others.  I'm arguing that there is a reason some kids are better than others, and it's not some magical bullshit intangible hocus pocus that we point to in order make ourselves feel better when someone else is better at something than we are. 

Read any sports biography in the world, and you'll see a story of an obsessed kid who spent thousands of hours practicing after every other kid had gone home.  Read any musician's biography and it's the same story.  The people who turn out to be virtuoso performers get that way by putting in the hours at an early age and then sticking with it all through the ranks.  Even Mozart wasn't born a musical genius, unless you believe he had a tiny piano in the womb.

Just because you can't pick out the talented baby in a room of 100 doesn't mean talent doesn't exist. 

Do you honestly believe that anyone, with enough practice, could win the olympic 100 yard dash? 

I don't disagree that champions practice a lot.  I don't believe, however, that practice alone is enough to make a champion.  You must have the innate ability.

Semi-recently, there was a contest in India called Million Dollar Arm (subject of a recent Disney movie).  Out of 1000s of contestants, they found 2 guys who could pitch a baseball over 90 miles per hour.  Neither of those two guys had EVER thrown a baseball before.  Yes, they had played cricket, but they were not well known cricket bowlers, such that you could explain it away based on volume of cricket practicing (at least not vs. the others in the contest).

BlueMR2

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #25 on: January 16, 2015, 04:02:01 PM »
Natural talent definitely exists.  Some people can just pick up something immediately and do a solid job with no practice.  Others can practice their hearts out and stay at beginner level forever.  The best combo is if you can actually find someone with talent that will practice.  Unfortunately, a really high talent level also tends to go along with those that don't want to practice, so they never improve over that initial (albeit relatively high) level.

From what I see, the most successful people are those with medium talent.  They've got enough to get started, but not enough to make them think they're awesome.  Drives them to practice and build skill, surpassing the high talent individuals in time.

lostamonkey

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #26 on: January 16, 2015, 04:05:13 PM »
I can tell you with certainty that you can have the perfect pitching mechanics, but unless you have the proper physical gifts (talent) you are never going to throw 95 miles per hour.  You cannot practice enough to make yourself have that ability if you don't have it as a talent.

Everyone keeps saying this like it's fact, but it's so demonstrably wrong.  Talent is what you call skill that kid has already acquired. 

To illustrate the point, if I show you a room that contains 100 one-day-old babies, can you tell me which of them has this mythical pitching talent?  Or musical talent?  Of course not, because all new babies are equivalently useless little sacks of squirmy shit.

But at some point between one day old and ten years old, some of those babies will get more practice than others.  Mommy will sing more bedtime songs, or junior will spend more time playing with his brother in the back yard, and those experiences will led to a clearly superior skill rating compared to other kids of the same age.  Talent has nothing to do with it, or you'd be able to tell me which baby would have it.

I'm not arguing that some kids aren't better at things that others.  I'm arguing that there is a reason some kids are better than others, and it's not some magical bullshit intangible hocus pocus that we point to in order make ourselves feel better when someone else is better at something than we are. 

Read any sports biography in the world, and you'll see a story of an obsessed kid who spent thousands of hours practicing after every other kid had gone home.  Read any musician's biography and it's the same story.  The people who turn out to be virtuoso performers get that way by putting in the hours at an early age and then sticking with it all through the ranks.  Even Mozart wasn't born a musical genius, unless you believe he had a tiny piano in the womb.

It's not hocus pocus, it's genetics. It's been scientifically proven that people have innate musical and athletic ability. All superstars at any activity worked hard to become superstars but they were also genetically lucky.

sol

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #27 on: January 16, 2015, 04:21:43 PM »
It's not hocus pocus, it's genetics. It's been scientifically proven that people have innate musical and athletic ability. All superstars at any activity worked hard to become superstars but they were also genetically lucky.

If you can show me the gene for "talent" then I'll happily change my view.

But there isn't one.  There are genes for size, and strength, and height, and even muscle size.  Those thing are all physical attributes, not talent. 

If you guys think "talent" means "tall" for a basketball player or "fast" for a sprinter, then we're having different arguments.  There are absolutely natural variations in physical traits.  But I think most people use "talent" to mean some sort of innate ability to learn a skill, not being over six feet tall.  Guess which of those examples genes can contribute to?

mak1277

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #28 on: January 16, 2015, 04:29:41 PM »
It's not hocus pocus, it's genetics. It's been scientifically proven that people have innate musical and athletic ability. All superstars at any activity worked hard to become superstars but they were also genetically lucky.

If you can show me the gene for "talent" then I'll happily change my view.

But there isn't one.  There are genes for size, and strength, and height, and even muscle size.  Those thing are all physical attributes, not talent. 

If you guys think "talent" means "tall" for a basketball player or "fast" for a sprinter, then we're having different arguments.  There are absolutely natural variations in physical traits.  But I think most people use "talent" to mean some sort of innate ability to learn a skill, not being over six feet tall.  Guess which of those examples genes can contribute to?

If you don't consider genetic advantages when you say talent then we definitely are having different conversations. I consider physical skills (not height really because simply being tall doesn't guarentee you can be in the nba...it isn't a skill) and iq/intelligence to be similar in this regard. And I would consider both to be "talent".

mak1277

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #29 on: January 16, 2015, 04:32:25 PM »
It's not hocus pocus, it's genetics. It's been scientifically proven that people have innate musical and athletic ability. All superstars at any activity worked hard to become superstars but they were also genetically lucky.

If you can show me the gene for "talent" then I'll happily change my view.

But there isn't one.  There are genes for size, and strength, and height, and even muscle size.  Those thing are all physical attributes, not talent. 

If you guys think "talent" means "tall" for a basketball player or "fast" for a sprinter, then we're having different arguments.  There are absolutely natural variations in physical traits.  But I think most people use "talent" to mean some sort of innate ability to learn a skill, not being over six feet tall.  Guess which of those examples genes can contribute to?

Websters defines talent as "a special ability which allows someone to do something well."

This has to include abilities that are bestowed genetically...not just ones that are obtained through practice/work.

sol

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #30 on: January 16, 2015, 04:47:31 PM »
Some people can just pick up something immediately and do a solid job with no practice.

Really?  When was the last time you saw a baby play the piccolo?  You haven't, because NOBODY IS BORN WITH PICCOLO TALENT.  Or any other talent.

Now if you take a 9th grade band class and have them all take a piccolo test, I would naturally expect the flutists to do an okay job, the horn section to be passable, the percussionists to suck it up.  Why?  Different levels of practice with related skills, that's all. 

Similarly, snowboarding is much easier to learn if you already know how to ski.  Rollerblading is much easier if you've ever been ice skating.  It doesn't mean you have innate talent, it means you have relevant skills, which you acquired by practice.  Unless you've ever met a baby Slo-Mo.
 
Websters defines talent as "a special ability which allows someone to do something well."

This has to include abilities that are bestowed genetically...not just ones that are obtained through practice/work.

By that logic, I am more talented than my (short) wife at reaching things on high shelves.  Does that make any sense?  I'm really good at reaching the top shelf in our pantry, because I am very tall, and she is very untalented, because she is very short.  Is that really the line you want to follow?

I think most of us use the word "talent" to refer to abilities that can be learned.  I can do all of the things this guy can do, and most people would call that a talent.  But I have absolutely zero natural ability to do any of that.   I learned every single one of those tricks through thousands of hours of repetitive practice.  I couldn't do them when I was two years old.  I didn't pick up my first set of clubs and magically figure it all out without trying.  That "talent" is just a learned skill, one that any of you could also learn in a few thousand hours of dedicated work.  Because there is no such thing as talent in that sense of the word.

mak1277

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #31 on: January 16, 2015, 05:28:18 PM »
You say, "I think most of us use the word "talent" to refer to abilities that can be learned."

Why then are the majority of people in this thread completely disagreeing with you?


sol

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #32 on: January 16, 2015, 05:46:25 PM »
You say, "I think most of us use the word "talent" to refer to abilities that can be learned."

Why then are the majority of people in this thread completely disagreeing with you?

Well it's not a very interesting question if you equate talent to some physical characteristic.  That's like asking "does height exist?" and I don't think that was the OP's intent.

PKFFW

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #33 on: January 16, 2015, 10:58:48 PM »
Taking the 100 babies playing the piccolo example a step further.....

It is undeniable that some will able to get some sort of musical sound out of the piccolo better than others the very first time they all pick up the piccolo or any other related instrument.  Nothing to do with practice.  Some will just be able to do it better than others.

It is the same with snowboarding......some kids will have better balance, a key requirement of snowboarding, than others right from the very first time they attempt to stand.  No practice required.

Same with any physical activity.......some will have better eye/hand co-ordination or dexterity or agility than others right from the very first time any of those 100 babies try anything.  All abilities that will contribute greatly to whatever physical activity they choose to apply these abilities to.

How about the more intellectual pursuits.......some will have a better ability at spacial awareness, pattern recognition or cognitive function than others right from the very first time they attempt any activity.  No practice required.

These are all things that will give one person the ability to be naturally better at some things than other people are.

Can we say someone has a natural talent specifically for playing the piano?  Or for any other complex task for that matter?  I don't think so.  However, a piano virtuoso will have natural abilities or "talents" that lend themselves to being exceptional at the piano.  These talents would lend themselves to many things though and only through practice will that person become a virtuoso at the piano.  Someone without these natural "talents" will find it much more difficult to achieve virtuoso level, and may never do so, regardless of how many hours they practice.
« Last Edit: January 16, 2015, 11:01:21 PM by PKFFW »

PEIslander

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #34 on: January 17, 2015, 05:37:01 AM »
My son has always been told by his classmates & teachers that he is the best, most talented, artist in his class. Being admired in that way encourages him and keeps him interested. I have seen that his getting to where he is today has taken years of very gradual skills development. It wasn't like he was born with talent - although he'd likely tell you he was. Told by others he has a 'gift' - he chooses to believe it.

I believe he was the same as every other kid but was supported and nurtured in his early creative efforts. He found positive reinforcement when he drew and seeking that reinforcement he drew more & more and with that came the gradual improvement in skills. For other kids that reinforcement comes when they improve their ballet, music or sports skills and they can likewise feel there is something special they are good at. Something that makes them better - more talented - in that area than other people.

Like my son, most of us probably grew up being told we were talented in some particular ability. It becomes part of who we are and how we see ourselves. That doesn't make it true that we were born with a talent. Sure there are some idiot savants who had a switch turned on instantly giving them skills that others never develop or would take many years to develop. Those are exceptional cases - most of us will never meet a true savant. The vast majority of those who think of themselves as talented or or who we admire/resent for their talent have taken years to develop their skills - they are not true savants. Obviously some have an aptitude for learning certain kinds of skills more quickly but that too can be a function of how you learned to learn and generally how clever (IQ) you are -- it isn't innate talent.

In my experience, the self-taught are most likely to buy into the whole talent myth. There own skills may have developed so gradually they believe they always had their special 'talent'. Those who are intensively trained are more likely to be aware that you can have no apparent talent in a particular pursuit but -if instructed well & work hard- you can quickly catch up to those who already deemed to have talent. When I went to architecture school I already had developed artistic skills that I & others interpreted as talent. I was shocked that many of my fellow classmates had arrived with zero artistic talent. Most had drawing skills limited to drawing stick-men! Nobody would ever have told these kids that they had artistic talent and none would have believed they could ever do what they eventually learned to do with instruction and skill development. By the time everyone of these people graduated they could draw very proficiently. Their skills caught up. I'm sure it surprised them but it didn't surprise the instructors who knew that it wasn't about talent - it is about skills. Composition, colour, emphasis, observation, etc. are all skills. Seeing that four-year transformation of a group of no talent students into a class of graduates who most people would consider very talented, changed my views on talent.

I once read, or was told, that part of the reason the Senators were concerned about Julius Caesar was that he had the then relatively unique ability to read silently. In the Roman period the vast majority of readers had to do it aloud. Caesar's 'talent' for reading silently made the Senators fearful that Caesar really was a 'chosen one' and it was threatening to them. It isn't to suggest this was a primary reason for drawing out their knives but perhaps a factor in their attitudes towards him. Anyway, today we realize that reading silently is just a skill (and not a unique gift) and young readers are pushed to develop the skill -- and your average seven year old masters. People are no different today than they were in Roman days.

In Victorian England young middle & upper class women were routinely educated how to embroider, draw, and do watercolours. The level of skills attained by the average student then would certainly be characterized by most people today as extremely talented - yet almost every girl in that period had those abilities. Alas, today we can read silently but are lousy at the water colours!  What we are taught today somewhat reflects the values of our societies. Artistic educations are not all that valued so when someone develops a higher level of skills we put them on a pedestal as 'talented' instead of just accepting they've developed more skills. Same for athletic skills. Same for musical skills.

In our culture we tend to either want to feel superior or inferior to other people. The inferiority complex people will say "Oh I have no talent, I could never do that!" and avoid ever developing any skills. So ingrained can be this sense that they have "no talent" that they can't accept they could learn to do the same as the person they hold up as talented. It can be an excuse against ever even trying and sadly it is pervasive. Those who do develop some skills often fail to see that they are just that: skills. Instead they think of themselves as 'talented' and pat themselves on the back and stand a little more proud. They fool themselves into thinking they are 'special' or 'gifted'. Others saying things like "Wow, you are sooo freak'n talented!" reinforces that thinking that they were somehow 'gifted'. Being "talented" becomes an integral part of how they see themselves -- and sadly it leads to seeing others as lacking talent & inferior to themselves. It is ego-driven madness yet our culture pervasively supports the talent vs. non-talent distinction and it can be very wrapped up in how we see ourselves & others.

I have no problem with people being proud of their accomplishments. They should be. Saying that you, who has highly developed skills,  have no more natural talent than the next guy (unskilled) should not be seen as put down of them. It does nothing to belittle your accomplishments - in fact it serves to highlight that your accomplishments are your own and not some 'gift'. Unfortunately most people have so bought into the talent myth their whole lives, they are likely to not accept and be insulted by the idea that they have no talent -- even though they have zip!
« Last Edit: January 17, 2015, 05:47:47 AM by PEIslander »

Janie

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #35 on: January 17, 2015, 06:31:25 AM »
Aptitude is a real thing IMO.

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Read any sports biography in the world…

Survivorship bias.

PEIslander

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #36 on: January 17, 2015, 07:03:54 AM »
Aptitude is a real thing IMO.

Aptitude & Talent aren't the same thing. Certainly individuals can have an aptitude for learning certain kinds of skills. They have to develop those skills before anyone would consider them talented.

mak1277

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #37 on: January 17, 2015, 08:15:25 AM »
I guess my main issue with this conversation is that in certain areas, simply working hard and developing skills isn't enough to guarantee success.  And you have to explain that gap somehow.  So you may say that "genetic physical gifts" or "IQ/Intelligence" is not talent.  And if that's your position, fine...we disagree, but it's irrelevant.

The fact remains, that pure work ethic...or simply having the right environmental factors...is not always enough to guarantee success.  Yes, hard work is important to skills development, but all the hard work in the world isn't going to allow someone without physical gifts to be a successful professional athlete...or someone without intelligence to be a high performing engineer.  There are simply some hurdles too high to overcome simply by "practice". 

And I think THAT was the OP's question --> "Are there people who are just better at something without having practiced more?"

Janie

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #38 on: January 17, 2015, 12:06:26 PM »
Aptitude is a real thing IMO.

Aptitude & Talent aren't the same thing. Certainly individuals can have an aptitude for learning certain kinds of skills. They have to develop those skills before anyone would consider them talented.

Right. I tend to think in terms of aptitude and aptitude development rather than talent.

matchewed

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #39 on: January 18, 2015, 04:45:52 PM »
I think that it exists but not in some huge impactful way. The practice and development of skill will be the largest determinant in being successful in the skill. The talent might just lead to a small propensity towards keeping with learning or starting the skill.

Can't we just rename the thread nature vs. nurture and admit both exist but for practical usage nurture is the only thing you should concern yourself with?

Zikoris

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #40 on: January 18, 2015, 06:24:32 PM »
I believe people have different brains and learning styles, and certain activities are much more easily learned depending on how that is. For example, a kinesthetic learner will pick up ballet steps and techniques hell of a lot faster than I do, fast enough and well enough that most people would consider him or her talented.

So if talent = correctly matching activities to how your own brain learns best, yes, it certainly exists.

pbkmaine

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #41 on: January 18, 2015, 06:31:54 PM »
I can't sing harmony. I have had plenty of music education, and I love to sing, but it has to be the melody line. On the other hand, I understood geometry completely the first day of class. Never had to study; it just all made sense. We all have gifts, but they are different gifts.

DoubleDown

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #42 on: January 20, 2015, 12:50:15 PM »
@Sol, haven't you ever learned something much faster than someone else, even though you started learning the thing at the same time? I'd call that a natural talent for that thing. The person with talent in that thing learns it faster and ends up doing it better than his/her peers with the same amount of practice. Or they often end up doing it far better than their peers even with less practice.

Mozart's musical ability was not just the result of him playing a lot of piano in his early years. You could find 1,000 others of his contemporaries with the same or more playing time and practice that never achieved anywhere near Mozart's accomplishments. They did not have his talent for music.

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #43 on: January 20, 2015, 01:02:42 PM »
Well, as a person with no musical ability whatsoever, I am certain that talent exists.

As a child, I quite enjoyed the piano. I practiced dutifully, I envied my friends who were better than me and tried hard to learn and impress people. Eventually I quit.

Many years later, my mother said to me, "When your brother quit the piano, I almost cried. Listening to him play was like listening to a pro. He picked up any piece of music and even composed his own. He had so much potential - if only he'd stuck to it!"

I said, "I never really felt that way about myself."

To which she replied, "Yes. Well. I almost wept with joy when you quit. It was ear-bleedingly awful to hear you play. But you really seemed to enjoy it, so we didn't want to discourage you." I assure you, my efforts with the violin were worse.

To this day, I have no real appreciation for music. When other people describe what they hear in music, I know that I don't have the "ear" to hear it. In the same way that we have physical limitations to our talent (there's not enough practice in the world that will make me a good football player), we have mental limitations.

We aren't all created equal.

mtn

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #44 on: January 20, 2015, 01:18:47 PM »
Absolutely. Some people are just born with it. Mozart wrote Twinkle Twinkle Little Star at what, 3 years old? It wasn't due to practice that he was able to. If it was, we'd have a million Mozarts.

Zamboni

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #45 on: January 20, 2015, 01:33:30 PM »
Mozart's father was a skilled professional musician and scholars believe it was in fact Papa who wrote most of those compositions attributed to little Amadeus.  Yes, Mozart himself wrote the later stuff, and some of it is beautiful.

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neural pathways are developed through use.

This is true, and is why I can't even hear some sounds in the Mandarin language.  Or maybe Chinese people are innately better at hearing Mandarin?  Hmmm.

It seems like this thread is an argument about semantics. 
1) Some people use the word "talented" to mean someone is quite good at something.  (aka "Rodin was a talented sculptor.")
2) Others use the word to imply that the person was born with a gift and didn't need to exert as much effort as others to be good at something.  (aka "He's not a hard worker, he's just really talented.") 
3) Sometimes the word "talent" is used to imply that someone is a little bit good at something, but an "expert" in that area of skill determines that particular person has a better chance at becoming awesome at it than most people.

The problem with the first couple of uses of the word is that it intentionally or unintentionally ignores the hard work aspect of becoming good at something complicated.  People will sometime use "I just wasn't talented" as a reason they gave up trying to learn something.  Case in point:

random lady at church:"Wow!  You are so talented!  I wish I could play piano like you, but I just don't have any talent for it."
my Mom:  "Thank you."  (in her mind:  talent has nothing to do with it you twit; I'm good because I practiced so much.)

The problem with the third definition is the massive bias issue that was brought up in Outliers.  Coaches (often coaches who don't know very much) are directly responsible for this becoming a snowball effect.  Sometimes it's that they inadvertently select the older children, and sometimes it's something else entirely.  For example, Bertha signs up for the basketball team and she's better than average for at her age at throwing, catching, dribbling, and shooting.  She has been playing in the yard with her older brothers.  But she is a little pudgy and wears glasses, and the guy coaching her 10 year old team doesn't like how she looks.  Heck, he doesn't even like her name.  So, even though none of the girls on the team have much in the way of skills, he never plays Bertha in the games.  He tells her it's because she's "too slow" and often has her in a passive role during practice while he is drilling his "top 5" girls.  When they run suicides, she beats several or her teammates every time, but that doesn't change the coach's mind.  Within a year or two, the other girls on the team are a little bit better because they have more experience and a more positive mental outlook.  Bertha really likes basketball, but eventually she believes that she just has no talent and moves onto other activity where she is more encouraged.

All this is to say that I do believe in such a thing as talent in some sense, but most of us are not at all qualified to be the judge of it.
« Last Edit: January 20, 2015, 01:36:20 PM by Zamboni »

jba302

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #46 on: January 20, 2015, 01:47:20 PM »

My 11 year old tells me he has no talent for football, which is apparently the sole criteria for popularity among 11 year old boys.  I tell him that if other kids are better at football than he is, it is because they have more practice and experience than he does.  If he played catch instead of Xbox, he'd be better at football too. 


In the realm of sport, genetics rule. Strength (determined by proportion of type 1 vs type 2 muscle fibers), speed / reaction time (virtually unaffected by practice, different from HOW you respond which is a learned skill), and physical stature will predetermine if a person is going to even have a chance of competing at upper levels. You will absolutely have dominating outliers in the pack who draw the genetic lottery, and in the 10-13 year old range you'll see them already.

Not to say your kid can't pull a Rudy and work himself for ages to make it, but there are some things that can't be overcome. If he can't outrun xyz people now, it is SUPER unlikely he will be able to in the future. But, if he can run flawless plays and recognize patterns sooner, then he can be put in the right positions to succeed at least through high school. Also, have him lift weights a lot. Strength isn't trained in many kids, if your kid lifts a lot he'll be a brick shithouse until high school varsity.

So my suggestion for your kid would be - if he wants to simply be in football, help him find the position that fits his talent structure and help him in that direction.
« Last Edit: January 20, 2015, 02:23:13 PM by jba302 »

Annamal

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Re: Do you believe in talent?
« Reply #47 on: January 20, 2015, 02:12:37 PM »
I believe in aptitude.

I also believe that aptitude can be a massive handicap for those who ever want to teach their particular skills.

Someone who picks a skill up intuitively is often someone who has never had to break it down to simple steps and will then find themselves at a loss when explaining that process to someone else.