51–60 of 113 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> - Intelligence, and as a consequence the upper limit of mathematical ability, is to a large extent genetically determined Which research?
He's not making that claim, merely pointing out that the claim isn't mutually exclusive to the other claim.
"There are two distinct things, both being true, as far as current research shows"
Equally, I spent a long time struggling at school with french. The amount of work I had to put in to achieve an "acceptable" result was considerably more than my peers. When the opportunity presented itself, I stopped studying french.
I firmly believe that, given enough tutoring, almost anyone could learn the maths that I studied all the way up to at least the first year of my degree. Equally, the evidence is that anyone is capable of learning a language. If I'd put in enough work, memorised enough vocabulary and been willing to practice I almost certainly could have achieved something approaching fluency.
However, in both those cases my sister and I came to the table with some innate abilities. She pursued what she found easy and enjoyed, and I pursued what I found easy and enjoyed. Today she's fluent in 3 languages and I'm fluent in 1, while I have an engineering degree.
Incidentally, I have an older sister who did study maths to a higher level. Hopefully that's slightly indicative that the environment that we grew up in wasn't discouraging towards girls studying maths or sciences.
This article is nothing but a blatant argumentum ad consequentiam, which is a logical fallacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_consequences The argument given here is basically "mathematical ability is not innate, because if it were, women would react badly to this fact." The article provides lots of evidence that women react badly to this belief, but no evidence whatsoever that the belief is wrong.
Before writing the post off with a logical fallacy, perhaps you should consider the biases inherent in doing so, and whether they are distorting your reasoning: http://plover.net/~bonds/bdksucks.html
Or feel free to cite applause points and declare victory. HN is still smart enough to see through such nonsense, though it does get worse every day.
Blog post is terrible. First quote talks about of the stupidity of the idea "hereditary wise man". That idea is indeed stupid, but what it has to do with the idea of "natural born"? And while my ability to play basketball can indeed be developed to some degree, can it be developed to be good enough to play it professionally? I doubt that. Now, some my say that there is difference between physical and mental abilities…
Maybe not NBA but probably NBADL(the NBA's farm league).
Personally I believe it is sort of a sliding scale(not sure if that is the right term), natural talent makes hard work more effective but doesn't negate the need for it. Hard work can compensate for some lack of natural ability but not all of it. Kind of like the tortoise and the hair, the one with the highest average speed will win the race but that isn't necessarily the point in time fastest.
What hurts technology is not those "childish believes" but belief that it is at the centre of the universe.
Fully agree with that.
Blog post is terrible. First quote talks about of the stupidity of the idea "hereditary wise man". That idea is indeed stupid, but what it has to do with the idea of "natural born"? And while my ability to play basketball can indeed be developed to some degree, can it be developed to be good enough to play it professionally? I doubt that. Now, some my say that there is difference between physical and mental abilities…
According to studies, this will make it a lot more difficult for you to get your basketball playing to a professional level.
"belief in gift and natural born ability is toxic to all, and by eliminating it, we won’t alienate so many from technology" There is certainly some inborn variation between people. Anyone with children is aware of it. Two children of the same parents can have very different personalities. So what exactly is it supposed to mean to "eliminate a belief" in variation in inborn ability? That we're supposed to believe some…
Let's say I grant the author his points about harming gender balances and programming culture. That still doesn't address the most important question: Is it true? Is programming an innate ability? It's unclear whether programming can be taught, but the most depressing study in this area is called The Camel Has Two Humps [1]: We have found a test for programming aptitude, of which we give details. We can predict succe…
This article is nothing but a blatant argumentum ad consequentiam, which is a logical fallacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_consequences The argument given here is basically "mathematical ability is not innate, because if it were, women would react badly to this fact." The article provides lots of evidence that women react badly to this belief, but no evidence whatsoever that the belief is wrong.
Isn't the women's performance being the same as men's in the math tests when they weren't told math skills are innate evidence that women are just as good at math as men?
Lots of people like to believe they got something from working hard for it, when they really had a lucky breaks (genetics perhaps for math?, height for basketball, rich parents for business).
I see this in sports interviews all the time. The current best in any sport is always "the hardest worker." Too bad nobody else in the league ever thought about that.
What effect nature has on it may be unclear, but it is definitely there.
I've never even heard someone be referred to as a "natural born programmer." While something like Mathematics can come to someone in a way that makes that person seem like "a natural," programming has so much culture, history, and happenstance ingrained in its reality that it is impossible to become highly skilled as a programmer without a great deal of passion.
The 10x meme is largely about some sort of mythical, inherent attribute that makes people super amazing and awesome at writing software. Some people also say that the reason there aren't more women in computer science is because they lack some sort of programming attribute.
Let's say I grant the author his points about harming gender balances and programming culture. That still doesn't address the most important question: Is it true? Is programming an innate ability? It's unclear whether programming can be taught, but the most depressing study in this area is called The Camel Has Two Humps [1]: We have found a test for programming aptitude, of which we give details. We can predict succe…