Is Life a Talent Contest?

The nature vs. nurture debate continues. Vox has a new article by Joseph Stromberg discussing results of a study that purports to discount the so-called 10,000 hours paradigm, promoted by Malcolm Gladwell, among others. That paradigm suggests that expert performance at almost anything requires about 10,000 hours of systematic practice. Stromberg's article has a photo of Argentine futbol star Lionel Messi, with a caption that claims he didn't get as far as he has just by practicing a lot.

My gut response is, tru dat, but he didn't get to where he is without practicing a lot, probably much more than 10,000 hours. The study is a meta analysis, looking at 88 other studies that looked at effects of practice time, and found that relatively small percentages of success in various endeavors could be explained by practice time with perhaps 25% in games, 21% in music, 18% in sports, to almost zero in professions. In most cases, practice times are "as remembered" but correlation was even lower when actual practice logs were available.

The original study is behind a pay wall, but I have to say that I have a whole lot of reservations. The traditional professions all require long hours of study, almost certainly 10,000 hours or more, just to get in the door. So if you compare members of these professions, you are comparing people who already meet the so-called "expert standard". There simply are not any MDs who put in only 200 or even 1000 hours of study and practice. Sprinters may be born that way, but no professional athlete in most sports got to the top level without practice and lots of it.

So if you compare those at the highest levels of achievement there will be very few who have not met the ten thousand hour standard, or close to it, and remaining differences are likely due to talent and other circumstances. I would be very reluctant to concede that the study in question proves anything except that hours of practice are not the only thing affecting performance - which is pretty darn obvious to start with.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anti-Libertarian: re-post

The most pointed critique of social security and liberalism in general is the libertarian critique. The problem with libertarians, for a liberal, is that we have too much in common. We both believe in individual rights, tolerance of individual differences, and dislike government prescription of religion. The basic difference, it seems to me, is the different answers we give to Cain's (with thanks to the Captain - my original version had the corpse asking the question!) famous question: "Am I my brother's keeper?" That's not really my basic bitch against the libertarians though. My real complaint is the same as my complaint against most religion - its premise is a fraud. For those who can't stand to wait for the punchline, I believe that trying to implement libertarian principles leads to tyranny or social disintegration. Demonstrating that takes some historical (and pre-historical) context. For all but the last 15,000 or so of the 100,000 years the human spec
Read more

Uneasy Lies The Head

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown ........... Shakespeare Henry IV, Part II. So it is with us and our slightly distant primate cousins , so it seems. A 9-year study of wild baboons in Kenya by Princeton University and the Institute of Primate Research may turn conventional assumptions of alphas males upside down. The study found that alpha males have high testosterone levels, which allows them to dominate other baboons, get access to more food, and attract better mates. This is expected. Surprisingly, though, the alpha males also have high levels of stress hormone glucocorticoid, which scientists measured from their feces samples. In fact, the stress of alpha baboons was on par with low-ranking baboons. The convention wisdom is that access to food and females provides life security and thus less stress for dominant males. Conversely, weak males who are constantly threatened by starvation and physical violence from stronger males are thought to be more stressed. The st
Read more

We Call it Soccer

The US played its best, and maybe only good game of World Cup, but lost thanks to brilliant goalkeeping by the Swedish keeper and the bizarre method soccer uses to settle ties when three US stars could not put the ball on frame from the 12 yard spot.  At the end it came down to a blocked shot that spun in by maybe a couple of centimeters. Well, that's football - too much like life.   Which brings me to a modest proposal.  Replace the thirty minute overtimes with as many 7-player 15 minute periods as needed to settle it.  Scoring should be much easier with fewer players.
Read more