Comment by jasode | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jasode | Hacker News Reader

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 "growth mindset", Angela Duckworth "grit", etc.

- definition #2: "talent" is a ranking. This is the meaning emphasized by most people who are "looking for the most talented". E.g. sports teams for athletes, Hollywood for actors, Google/Microsoft for PhDs in mathematics and machine learning, etc.

If you're unaware of both meanings of "talent", you will always misunderstand what the other side is talking about. As a result, people will forever be bikshedding the word "talent" and stay frustrated that they can't convince the other side to change their mind!

The blog author of this thread also leaves out the meta discussion of "talent" and is using definition #2. The blog author (Jacob Kaplan-Moss) in my previous comment uses definition #1.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16812957

- 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 give an edge that is difficult to overcome later in life. But this would only apply to the top of the top.

In sports even physical attributes can determine peak talent.

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.

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

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

Is that distinction really relevant to this debate? The advocates in #1, as best I can tell, would endorse the claims that you can improve by definition #2, except perhaps in pathological cases (like where everyone in the world is practicing at the same skill).

And anyone who disagrees with the claim in #1 would also disagree you can improve talent by #2.

I don't see how clarifying terms would make anyone think they were talking past each other.

And anyone who disagrees with the claim in #1 would also disagree you can improve talent by #2.

My view is that #1 is obviously false, but also that it can be possible to outperform someone with more natural talent by studying or practicing more effectively.

>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 suffer from this.

And that at times, people with less talent often end up doing better than people in bullet one above in the long run because they're less likely to view short term barriers as made of bricks. But I don't think she ever claimed that such people will do better than those in bullet 2 above.

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...

>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.

>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

I'll concede that she plays fast and loose with the term.

The reason I'm pushing back is that as we are talking about talent in the innate sense, there is (AFAIK) no scientifically valid way of measuring it (beyond perhaps a binary measure). So taking a stance either way on whether it can be developed further is a bit problematic. I'd be curious to see how her actual journal papers discuss the matter.

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