Hand Skills – Doctors of Sewing Needed | Hacker News Reader

Hand Skills – Doctors of Sewing Needed

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54 pointsColinWright11 comments

As a co-founder and still heavily involved in a nonprofit makerspace in Michigan, I can say this is spot-on.

We've all heard the anecdote about someone who thought meat was produced at the grocery store, didn't realize it came from animals. There's a similar sort of abject ignorance happening with material things now, and the skills to make and manipulate them. I've seen it dozens of time and it blows my mind.

We don't have much evidence, but the evidence we do have suggests that there's a positive correlation between video gaming experience and surgical skills acquisition.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20630431

I worked at this aerospace corporation, and I was wondering why in such a male skewed environment, the entire team of PCB prototype soldering was female. They were all ex textile workers, re-trained for electronics.

There is a lot that can be learned by practicing one skilled trade and applying it to another. If you develop software but have not taken the opportunity to build physical things - there is so much to learn.

I'd argue that the actual value of teaching needlework to kids is not to produce great surgeons but to identify who might make a great surgeon and who probably shouldn't even bother trying. Great hand eye coordination is an innate ability

Innate? I would assume it's a product of practice and experience, just like most skills.

Some people can take decades at a job to acquire the competency that others almost start out with. It's no way to spend a life especially if it's in a job like surgery. The worst thing is that you maybe only truly realise your predicament when you're already in golden handcuffs. It's a recipe for stress depression and even suicide

I think it's called "development lag" in children, and there were a few studies done on how most eventually catch up to their peers. There are some contributing factors such as right/left hand dominance, vision and/or balance issues (many children go undiagnosed for a few years when suffering from issues with their eyes or inner ear etc), some hand-eye coordination lag can be attributed to a slowly developing brain / neurons, possibly down to nutrition, physical exercise, stimuli etc etc.

While I agree that some children and adults seem to have an "innate" ability, I would argue this ability is formed by their development as children and how they grow up, and there are a few studies coming to this conclusion (just search "children development lag" on google scholar).

I would further argue that most, if not all individuals barring physical and/or mental disabilities can acquire any given skill with deliberate practice (in a method that works best for them) over a certain period of time not far off those with an inherit advantage; again you can search "deliberate practice" on google scholar to find numerous studies.

> Great hand eye coordination is an innate ability

Do you have any source for that claim?

No. You see it in sport all the time. Some people just have it from an early age. Obviously they need to work as well and not all do but lots of sports greats are spotted at an early age.

Have coached young children. Coordination is not innate, it is developed through practice.

Some people may learn faster but everyone can with practice.

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