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The “10,000 Hours of Practice” Myth

greyenlightenment.com

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Re: The “10,000 Hours of Practice” Myth

#41

Post by diminoten »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #29
matchagaucho wrote: post #6

The ugliest moments in history started with a "genetics matter"stance. Not worth repeating.

I get that eugenics is ugly, and shouldn't be accepted, but are you telling me those 4'8" basketball players aren't in the NBA because they just don't want it enough?

There are a handful of truly short players who've demonstrated it's possible to play in the league without being tall. Is there a material difference between 4'8" and 5'3" when your opponents are 6'11"+?

At that point, probably not.

Assuming a person is healthy, there's nothing that makes playing in the NBA literally impossible.

Re: The “10,000 Hours of Practice” Myth

#42

Post by numeromancer »

daveguy wrote: post #26
jasode wrote: post #7

Keep in mind that the word "talent" is used in 2 very different meanings and a group fixated on one meaning does not acknowledge the other meaning. (My previous comment about this.[0]) - definition #1: "talent" doesn't exist or it's achievable by anyone because it's just a learnable skill. Skills can be improved. This is the meaning emphasized by M Gladwell (10000 hours), D Coyle (talent doesn't exist), Carol Dweck "…

- definition #3: "talent" is an inherent property of ability and maximum potential. "born with it", "gifted", "a natural" etc. That determines how much effort it takes to learn a skill for #1 and your maximum possible rank / whether you should bother trying in #2. I don't like this definition, but it is definitely one of them. If it is accurate I think it is in the fact that training / practice from a young age can g…

This definition is better than the others, given the origin of this use of the word "talent".

Re: The “10,000 Hours of Practice” Myth

#43

Post by czr »

Practice makes performance at a given task faster, smoother, more automatic, and more robust. The "practice makes permanent" quote elsewhere in the comments is correct in this respect. Practice does _not_ guarantee that anything useful will be learned–this requires some way to measure progress, some measure of deliberate reflection regarding past failures and their causes (which will allow you to propose new behaviors to practice), and, for intellectual tasks, some deeper analysis of the underlying principles (which will allow you to propose better principles to guide future behavior, even in out-of-distribution cases which you have never practiced for).

The article appears to be attributing the difference to genetics alone, which is neither accurate nor a useful line of inquiry. And the article is attempting to argue against a Gladwellized strawman of Ericcson's work, rather than the actual research, which feels intellectually dishonest. Not a fan of this post.

Re: The “10,000 Hours of Practice” Myth

#44

Post by hexane360 »

AznHisoka wrote: post #16
padraigf wrote: post #14

Bit of a straw-man argument. Ericsson's original research didn't claim that 10,000 hours of practice made you an expert. It was that no-one became an expert (in his studied domain of violin playing) without about 10,000 hours of practice. The 10,000 hours of practice was a sine-qua-non to becoming an expert, but he never claimed it was necessarily sufficient.

Such a nonsense article really. I know nobody that claims that 10,000 hours = makes you a top expert. Nonsense, just pure nonsense.

Here's one in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19163098

And another: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19162386

Re: The “10,000 Hours of Practice” Myth

#45

Post by mikestew »

I realize it is not what has been touted, but I always took the "10K hours" thing to mean, "it takes 10K hours to reach your potential". That is still a way too convenient round number, but good enough for a rough estimate.

But it has a flip side: "after 10K hours, that's about as good as you're ever going to get". I've easily got 10K hours on the guitar, but I'm no Jimmy Page, nor will I ever be. 10K hours of running? 40 years, carry the one...yeah, probably. Look through my comments, see anything about the Olympics? A few wins at some regional-level races is all I'm ever going to get.

On the other other hand, if you put the time in, you might not become Jimmy Page/Bobby Fischer/Usain Bolt, but I am convinced you'll get competent at whatever you pursue. No musical talent? Bah, sit down for a half hour a day of real practice for a month, tell me how little "talent" you have.

Re: The “10,000 Hours of Practice” Myth

#46

Post by feluso »

Cannot take this article seriously, I think we understand certain features we have can make certain things easier for us and harder for other people, but simplifying it saying it's an IQ thing and stretching implying it's something that only happens at early ages?

Too much factors to understand why someone is successful or not, and there is a lot to practice and how you approach it to become an expert to it... acting like skill has a cap is not really gonna help you at all anyway

Re: The “10,000 Hours of Practice” Myth

#47

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

diminoten wrote: post #41
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get that eugenics is ugly, and shouldn't be accepted, but are you telling me those 4'8" basketball players aren't in the NBA because they just don't want it enough?

There are a handful of truly short players who've demonstrated it's possible to play in the league without being tall. Is there a material difference between 4'8" and 5'3" when your opponents are 6'11"+? At that point, probably not. Assuming a person is healthy, there's nothing that makes playing in the NBA literally impossible.

> Assuming a person is healthy, there's nothing that makes playing in the NBA literally impossible.

Well no, but there's a reason that those short people made it to the NBA, they had other potential that got them there. Mugsy was incredibly fast. If it was all about heart we'd see an equal distribution, unless somehow being taller means you have more heart.

Re: The “10,000 Hours of Practice” Myth

#48

Post by lelima »

nannePOPI wrote: post #34

I wish I knew this 10 years ago, when I decided to study math and get a CS degree. Sadly, while I'm good at programming (at least to the extent that nobody ever complained and projects got shipped), I'm really uncapable at math. I don't know what it is exactly, I just can't do it, no matter how much books, video lessons and tutoring I throw at it. I always understand theory but I cannot solve most exercises and probl…

I've heard Jordan Peterson saying that, which makes sense but, It makes me sad as well, about 1/10 people are just not able to learn skilled tasks.

I wonder if we evolve kind of similar to ants, which some are just explorers, some hard workers, other just defend the nest.

I think genes are the code that render us inside of the matrix :)

Re: The “10,000 Hours of Practice” Myth

#49

Post by egypturnash »

mikestew wrote: post #45

I realize it is not what has been touted, but I always took the "10K hours" thing to mean, "it takes 10K hours to reach your potential". That is still a way too convenient round number, but good enough for a rough estimate. But it has a flip side: "after 10K hours, that's about as good as you're ever going to get". I've easily got 10K hours on the guitar, but I'm no Jimmy Page, nor will I ever be. 10K hours of runnin…

10k hours of practice - including a lot of “directed” practice, where you have some advice on what to work on, and no small amount of thoughtful critique - will generally get you to “hireable in your craft”. There’s still a lot to learn. I passed that point in my art skills around 2000, and can crank out a much better drawing with a lot less thought than 2000 me could.

10k hours of fiddling around by yourself will get you somewhere, to be sure.

(Quick math: 10k/5 = 2000, divide that by 365 and you have about five and a half years of spending 5h on your craft every day. Which sounds a lot like “majoring in your craft at a four-year college, then learning how it really works on your first job” to me.)

Re: The “10,000 Hours of Practice” Myth

#50

Post by jasode »

BeetleB wrote: post #37
jasode wrote: post #7

Keep in mind that the word "talent" is used in 2 very different meanings and a group fixated on one meaning does not acknowledge the other meaning. (My previous comment about this.[0]) - definition #1: "talent" doesn't exist or it's achievable by anyone because it's just a learnable skill. Skills can be improved. This is the meaning emphasized by M Gladwell (10000 hours), D Coyle (talent doesn't exist), Carol Dweck "…

>Carol Dweck "growth mindset", Can you point me to where Carol Dweck says this? I've read a little of her work, but do not recall such a claim. The primary work that made her famous was that emphasizing talent resulted in: 1. A focus on the very narrow area the person is talented in, and being very quick to give up outside of that discipline. 2. The same people who have the talent, when effort is emphasized, do not s…

She said "talent can be developed" in multiple presentations and interviews. Here's one example[0]:

>Carol Dweck: ", when students had more of a growth mindset, they held the view that talents and abilities could be developed"

An interpretation can be that one can have talent_level=100 which can then be developed into talent_level=200.

In contrast to Dweck, the people emphasizing definition #2 of ranking "talent" are usually talking about the innate aptitude that "can't be taught". Talent is not a "learnable skill" but an unchangeable raw baseline of aptitude.

Dweck is not wrong in how she frames "talent" (hey let's empower people to improve themselves). However, it's worth pointing out that different people attach very different semantics to the word "talent". This makes various books and blog posts look contradictory.

[0] https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/12/how-pr...

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