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Originally Posted by
magic9mushroom
What you're quoting from the research is not what you're claiming, though. What you're quoting is that skill = talent + effort and that effort > talent, not that talent = 0 which is what you're claiming.
The vast,
vast majority of the time, when people are saying "talent," they're not saying "skill = talent + effort." They're saying "skill = talent." Effort doesn't come into the equation. They use phrases like, "I wish I had talent like you." And then when you tell them you don't "have talent," you just worked really hard, they rebuff you and say that they could never do that. Almost everyone--again, I have both work experience and research to back me up on this--sees talent as a
barrier to entry into a wide variety of skills and careers they explicitly say they would enjoy having. If you're only using "talent" to mean "pre-invested work," you're
radically differing from the way almost everyone uses the word; you're not
wrong, per se, but you should expect people to argue with you. If you mean it as something genetic, something that just inherently makes Sam better at X than Pat, then you're simply speaking in error--very few things humans do can be traced down to the genetic level, and
exceedingly few people actually possess any meaningfully divergent genetics.
Hence my repeated example of people like Michael Phelps; he
does have a special genetic trait that makes him better at athletics than other people. He also lost to people who don't have that talent, until he developed his skills. Even though genetics can influence things, it's only determinative when you're looking at the absolute bleeding edges of skill. So if "talent" simply means pre-invested effort,
it is not, and never has been, the barrier almost everyone treats it as being. That's what I've been saying all along. Literally from my very first post on the subject (bold added for emphasis):
Quote:
Originally Posted by
ezekielraiden
Talent as most people use the word doesn't exist. There are *very small* amounts of talent that do exist, and they occasionally matter in the absolute bleeding edges of human achievement, e.g. a generic predisposition to smaller-yet-more-numerous red blood cells can help someone like Michael Phelps push to be tenths of a second faster to get a ton of gold medals rather than a mix of silver and gold. That is a "talent" that cannot be learned and innately provides a real, albeit small, advantage. Way too many people mistakenly conflictconflate prior (accidental) practice with "talent"--oh, I could never do calculus, I don't have the knack for it. Wow, your art is so pretty, I wish I had talent like you! Bull friggin' hockey, all of it.
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You straight-up said that some people have to work longer than others to achieve the same level of mastery - that is what talent is. I mean, no ****, you can make up for a lack of talent with more hard work, but someone with more talent and the same amount of hard work will still be better.
That is not how the word "talent" is defined in any dictionary I have access to. Specifically, from Dictionary.com (as just one example): "a special natural ability or aptitude." And from the synonym study under the word "ability": "2. Ability, faculty, talent denote qualifications or powers. Ability is a general word for power, native or acquired, enabling one to do things well: a person of great ability; ability in mathematics. Faculty denotes a natural ability for a particular kind of action: a faculty of saying what he means. Talent is often used to mean a native ability or aptitude in a special field: a talent for music or art." Note the contrast between
acquired and
native. Or consider Merriam-Webster's entry for "talent":
Quote:
Originally Posted by Merriam-Webster
1a : a special often athletic, creative, or artistic aptitude
b : general intelligence or mental power : ability
2 : the natural endowments of a person
"Talent" is explicitly defined to be native, natural, innate; it's not something you get from work, it's just something you inherently possess, without doing any work whatsoever, not even *unintentional* work. Anything that can be made up for with work is not "talent" as the word is used. I wouldn't keep harping on things like Michael Phelps' unusual blood cells if I didn't mean that as a clear example of "talent" as the word is typically defined.
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Originally Posted by
King of Nowhere
Well, then we have different ideas of what talent means, and both can be right. I myself stated that everyone can become reasonably competent at anything with enough effort, and you are not arguing against my concept of "some people learn faster".
See above. If when you use the word "talent" you only mean "some people have extra preparation/pre-practice," then you're right, but we will have been talking past each other due to this nonstandard usage. If you mean "talent" to include any amount of innate ability to succeed that simply can never be approached by someone without "talent," then that part doesn't meaningfully exist for anything but hyper-specialized cases like the Olympics, where you finally get to see humans hit the ultimate skill plateaus.
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So we want to discover that the idea of "natural talent" is wrong.
And this introduces bias. Any scientist should know that wanting or expecting a certain result is a major source of bias. and plenty of research shows that bias is present in a lot of research.
Bias in research is certainly a concern, and because science is empirical rather than deductive, I will never be able to tell you totally for 100% certain that no bias is present. However, I
can tell you that at the university level, this is understood to be the
extremely well-supported consensus. Natural, innate talent that clearly separates "haves" from "have-nots," doesn't exist. Pre-invested effort that people don't realize was pre-invested effort? Absolutely exists, and is a significant part of what shapes our interests and preferences....but it's also not "talent" as most people use the word.
Further? I think it's incorrect to assume that all scientists want/expect this result. I think it's more likely that a fair number of people
would believe innate-inborn-natural-talent is a real thing--after all, so many regular folks do, why would scientists be any different? Some of them would because they have elitist perspectives, whereas others might simply allow for the fact that talent exists but isn't determinative. The research pretty clearly shows that innate-inborn-natural-talent
effectively doesn't exist; it does, but to such a minimal and minor degree that, barring the most extreme situations, it makes no meaningful difference.
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Especially because people generally lack skills in what they actually don't like doing. If you like doing it, you will do it more, becoming more good in the process. The opposite is also true. So when people say that they have no talent for doing something, most of the times they also loathe doing that.
Yep, I am sure I could, i.e. learn to fill my tax revenues to a high degree of competence if I spent a lot of time learning it. But I think my life will be happier if I pay some professional to do it for me and spend my time instead practicing the stuff that actually gives me satisfaction.
Unfortunately, a lot of things don't actually work out this way. For example--again, citing my own work experience--there are a lot of students who are really passionate about chemistry, biology, or medicine. They really, really enjoy learning about and discussing these fields. But they haven't learned to do the math they need in order to get degrees/certifications in order to get the job. And the math is a struggle. It sucks. Some studies have literally shown that merely
thinking about math causes actual, measurable pain (pain receptors firing in the skin and pain-response sections of the brain responding) for some students that struggle with it.
Helping students realize that they are not just destined to be bad at math forever because they aren't "talented" enough is an enormous part of the tutoring process. Building people up so that they realize, hey, even if learning this sucks now, it's a necessary building block to something I really want to do, something that will help me live a happier and more fulfilling life. Much like how many people fail to stick with a gym membership or workout routine, because the gains are often slow at first, and they often
hurt (I actually gave myself a minor injury my first time lifting weights--couldn't bend OR straighten my arms without SCREAMING pain for about 24 hours, and minor aches for about two weeks!)
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I've never seen people being put off from what they actually like doing by "lack of talent". I do have seen people being put off by excessive expectations, though.
As noted, I have, frequently. I have also had the joy of working with students over the course of a couple of years, and then when they started to get anxious or frustrated or depressed, I could look them in the eye, smile, write down a quick math formula, and say, "Remember when you thought this was hard? Now you can do it in your sleep. This new stuff is just what the old stuff was...back when it was new to you." And I've gotten some genuinely pretty moving smiles out of it. People frequently don't realize how much their own misperceptions about learning new skills hold them back. It's a
serious problem.