Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The “10,000 Hours of Practice” Myth

greyenlightenment.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 71 posts

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

#51

Post by goatlover »

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.

Malcom Gladwell pretty much made the claim that talent is a myth and having the passion to practice enough made you a top expert. He backtracked a bit on that, but the claim was out there and repeated in the media.

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

#52

Post by goatlover »

rizzom5000 wrote: post #33
abnry wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To go on about sports, hasn't there been some research done about slow twitch and fast twitch muscles and their importance for being a fast sprinter? I think Usain Bolt has a much higher number of fast-twitch muscle cells than normal. That could be called talent.

The research I've seen appears to suggest that everyone has both fast twitch and slow twitch muscle fibers and that by doing certain types of exercises you can increase the strength and size of one type more than the other. I'd guess there is a genetic component to Usain Bolt's success, but I'd be careful to claim that it is more important than training.

If you've ever participated in track and field for any length of time, you realize that the genetic component is more important for the type of events you can successfully compete in with enough practice.

Sprinters definitely have a fast twitch advantage that you can't get with any amount of training if you're not born with it. Sure, you can improve your own sprint times up to a point, but you can't really make up the gap. You just choose an event that's better suited for your body type, such as longer distance or throwing, etc. And sprinters can't compete with distance runners either.

Assuming similar amounts of training. If there's a huge difference in training, one might be able to overcome the differences. Particularly if you're more middle distance with decent speed and endurance.

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

#53

Post by goatlover »

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.

It's not impossible, it's just highly unlikely. Muggsy Bogues is the extreme outlier. Most NBA players in the history of the game are above average height, despite tons of shorter people having similar access to playing the sport.

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

#54

Post by BeetleB »

jasode wrote: post #50
BeetleB wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

>She said "talent can be developed" in multiple presentations and interviews.

I think she's simply being informal. Right after your quote she says:

>With a growth mindset, kids don’t necessarily think that there’s no such thing as talent or that everyone is the same, but they believe everyone can develop their abilities through hard work, strategies, and lots of help and mentoring from others.

The way I always read her work is: If a person has talent, having a growth mindset is much more likely to realize the talent than a fixed mindset.

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

#55

Post by mark-r »

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 best matches the one I use. There's a reason both words "talent" and "skill" exist, because they're different.

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

#56

Post by diminoten »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #47
diminoten wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Mugsy was fast because he worked hard to be fast, not because he was born with "fastness".

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

#57

Post by diminoten »

goatlover wrote: post #53
diminoten wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not impossible, it's just highly unlikely. Muggsy Bogues is the extreme outlier. Most NBA players in the history of the game are above average height, despite tons of shorter people having similar access to playing the sport.

It's predictive, just not enough to make decisions on. You're not saying we don't let anyone under 6' play basketball, are you?

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

#58

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

diminoten wrote: post #57
goatlover wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not impossible, it's just highly unlikely. Muggsy Bogues is the extreme outlier. Most NBA players in the history of the game are above average height, despite tons of shorter people having similar access to playing the sport.

It's predictive, just not enough to make decisions on. You're not saying we don't let anyone under 6' play basketball, are you?

No, they are saying that in all likelihood they don't the physical ability to play the game.

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

#59

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

diminoten wrote: post #56
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Mugsy was fast because he worked hard to be fast, not because he was born with "fastness".

So it was only one short guy who wanted it and a bunch of tall ones?

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

#60

Post by jasode »

BeetleB wrote: post #54
jasode wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>She said "talent can be developed" in multiple presentations and interviews. I think she's simply being informal. Right after your quote she says: >With a growth mindset, kids don’t necessarily think that there’s no such thing as talent or that everyone is the same , but they believe everyone can develop their abilities through hard work, strategies, and lots of help and mentoring from others. The way I always read…

>I think she's simply being informal.

No, she explains that talent is not fixed in multiple presentations.[0] To paraphrase one of her examples, "Michael Jordan wasn't particularly talented at basketball; he _became_ talented."

>The way I always read her work is: If a person has talent, having a growth mindset is much more likely to realize the talent than a fixed mindset.

Right and I agree with it but that doesn't change the meta discussion that people leave out about "talent".

She can be "correct" about "developing talent" using that type of framing (which agrees with Gladwell, Coyle, Duckworth, etc) while at the same time she doesn't point out that "talent" is also used by others as a word that describes ranking of innate aptitude which cannot be changed by a growth mindset nor explained by "practice". (For example, an 8-year old child prodigy that has mastered differential calculus even though he didn't have 10000 hours of math practice that the 19-year olds in college still struggling with remedial algebra had.)

[0] https://youtu.be/-71zdXCMU6A?t=2m58s

Post reply on HN