The Problems with Deliberate Practice (2020)

“ First, it seems improbable that in the narrow area of expert performance we find that practice dominates, whereas in everything else, we find that genetic factors have an equally large (if not greater) effect on outcomes. (This latter bit — that genes matter in determining IQ, mental health, personality traits, aptitude, and others — is so well replicated so as to not be in serious dispute any longer.”

Now that’s a pretty huge claim, and I don’t think that linking Guardian articles backs up that claim as scientific consensus.

Neurons + culture (aka, practice) are essentially the biological solution to DNA being too slow. It’s not “improbable” that practice dominates here, in fact, I’d say that our genetics specifically evolved for practice to be more important there.

> the effect sizes from deliberate practice far dominate when compared against innate talent, genetics, or other factors

We won't settle this in the comments section of HN so I'm not even going to try.

I'm just curious how this is percieved by ordinary pepople in your home region.

I'm from Romania and generally people here see innate talent as a higher limit to performance, and practice is the way to reach it.

“Second, the deliberate practice research makes an awfully attractive claim: that anyone, given enough determination, can become good at any skill. They merely have to do lots and lots of difficult deliberate practice.“

I am not sure if people on deliberate practice agree on precisely that claim, but perhaps they would agree on “Anyone can become better at any skill, given that one does deliberate practice”.

Whether deliberate practice can make you good relative to other people is a separate question that is beyond the scope of deliberate practice. There, one factors in people with different innate and qualities and practice habits all competing with each other. The ones who are at the very top will likely have both innate qualities and good training regiments.

I think there's obviously a confluence of nature and nurture which is going to lead to the final outcome in terms of skill attainment.

I think the extent to which genetics varies probably varies a lot depending on the domain. For instance, something like long-distance running depends a lot on physics and biology: how efficient you can be at moving your body through space depends a lot on how tall you are, how long your limbs are, and things like the width of your pelvis. You will still need a lot of practice to reach your full potential, but what level you reach, and how fast you reach it will be heavily influenced by genetic factors.

However, that being said, practice is still absolutely magic. In the spirit of the 80/20 rule, it's amazing how much a little bit of deliberate practice can improve an untrained skill. Especially when developing a skill from absolute zero, a few weeks of deliberate practice can often take me from the realm of absolute failure, to the point where I can actually enjoy practicing it.

I've also sometimes reflected on the fact that skill attainment through practice seems more difficult as one gets older. I think this is almost certainly true to some extent, as neuroplasticity is real, and for instance a 40 year old will never have as easy a time learning a language as a 5 year old. However I think it's also a bit overstated.

When you are a kid, every thing you are learning is relatively new, so when practicing a new skill you have a more uniform point of comparison in terms of how fast you learn things. As an adult, you have certain skills you might have been practicing daily for 20 years and have completely mastered. So when you sit down and manage to play Für Elise for the first time at a piano it seems absolutely rudimentary in comparison, even if you are making real progress, which can be demoralizing.

There's also the factor that adults tend to be more subconscious about failing in public. We've spent years learning how to avoid situations where we look bad, or can't do what we set out to do, unlike kids who aren't expected to be able to do much. It's an approach which is really self-defeating if your goal is to actually learn something new.