Of course practice is necessary to become proficient, and lots of practice is necessary to achieve mastery. But, the amount needed has to vary depending on the person, and some people will never achieve mastery in some areas. There is such a thing as native skill. And the inverse.
According to Matthew Syed in Bounce (a very good read) there are numerous fields in which native or genetic skill is considered the norm (sports, chess, math) but no studies support that hypothesis.
Conversely a number of studies actively disprove that native skill exists. Ultimately, barring true genetic freaks (Michael Phelps wingspan for instance) anyone could achieve any level of any pursuit with enought focussed practice and a degree of luck.
It is true that training dominates 'talent'/'genetic biomechanics'. But, at similar levels of training some other factor will play a part in determinnig who is best, and at the elite end everyone is basically at the same levels of training so 'talent'/'genetics' will be the deciding factor. There is a reason why each discipline in pro-athletics seems to attract such a homogeneous collection of body shapes and why the people who 'break the mould' are often the most successful at the sport.
None of which are significant enough to not make someone a master. You don't have to be The Best to be a master at anything, as this is again conflating success with mastery.
Being arguably masters at the most remotely similar activity to your example in a tall guys field, [0], [1] and [2] beg to differ, and were also successful on top of it:
[0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_Murphy
You keep referring to talent. Which does not exist, has never been proven and has been disproven numerous times by taking sportsman out of their chosen sport but into a new sport requiring similar talent and testing their performance which is always sub-par and hovering around average.
The primary example used is table tennis players are famed for having naturally quick reflexes. In every academic study, table tennis players performed no quicker than average in any reflexes test and in some cases performed worse than various random individuals from the street.
There are others but you should read the book before discounting a hypothesis. I have read enough to convince me natural talent is a myth; the equivalent of a rain dance is the reason for rain.
Hard work and dedication will make anyone good at anything - no-one disputes this. But Syed wants to apply this to the elite level as well. The elite level is where outliers live on an everyday basis
The studies he cites goes the wrong way to draw the conclusion that he wants to draw - it's not about saying table tennis players have super quick reflexes that apply generally it's that some people have super quick reflexes of a type that apply to table tennis. So, whilst Table Tennis players' 'quick reflexes' are clearly trained for the specific situation of Table Tennis rather than being the results of having 'talented' generalist quick reflexes there will be, in the pool of all of humanity, people who's natural bio-mechanic disposition makes them have Table Tennis appropriate quick-reflexes. So if that person applies hard work and dedication to Table Tennis then they will be better than someone without the bio-mechanical advantage who puts in the same hard work and dedication. But if they apply hard work and dedication to another discipline that require fast reflexes they won't be any better as their 'talent' doesn't apply.
I follow rugby, rugby is littered with players who were really good but who's body could not take the strain of the training and broke down through the effort. Clearly hard work and dedication alone was not enough for them - they needed a body that could respond favorably to the punishment they were taking.
Do you think human beings with super quick reflexes exist? That does not stand up to scientific scrutiny. I fear we are at an impasse, you have your views and it appears they preclude reading anything that challenges them.
Interestingly, I had similar views before reading the cited studies.
At the level of becoming very good indeed these limits have no effect on becoming better as you do not reach them, but at the elite level, at becoming the best they do. Do you really believe that the guy who came 2nd to 7th in the 2012 Olympic 100m sprint trained an appreciable, measurable, amount less than Usain Bolt - with less dedication, application and rigour? Do you think, say, Gatlin, Gaye and Bailyey trained in a worse environment less conducive to success than Bolt?
Are you really saying you can go look Donnie MacFadyen in the face and say he just didn't train with enough dedication?
Elite athletes are already outliers within the human race however within athletics there are extreme outliers like Bolt and Phelps who have astronomically rare genetic advantages. To be representative they need to be discounted. Not even the Olympics is N number of Usain Bolts racing against each other. It is N number + Usain Bolt.
Donnie McFayden may have trained as hard as he thought he could. That does not mean he was in the optimum training environment, he apportioned his time correctly or he trained with focus required to be better than he is. His training habits may have become effective simply too late in his career (Maybe he took training seriously at 8 years old but his competitors (in team and other team) took it seriously at 4. Maybe he is absolutely outstanding but the team failed him.
The factors are numerous. It might just be he is unlucky; his coaches didn't recognise his brilliance or they played him out of position. The point is not why is Donnie not the absolute best in history. It is 'Can anyone with the basic requirements reach the level of playing international rugby with the right focus and training and luck - the answer is yes, yes they can.'
They literally just have to want it enough and have the resources (time, money, family, coaches) in place to achieve it.
Anyone can be a Chess Grandmaster with enough study. Proven by Laszlo who specifically taught his children chess in order to prove geniuses are made/trained, not born."
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200506/the-grandmast...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Polg%C3%A1r
Also proven by the Williams sisters whose father decided* they would be tennis champions and worked them mercilessly towards that goal using any equipment to hand. Unless your hypothesis is that -
Two genius tennis prodigies were born with the gifts required to be a tennis prodigy and their father just happened to settle on the sport of Tennis? I think those odds are considerably more unlikely than "anyone can be a Tennis champion with the basic requirements and dedication which is what the Williams sisters had."
If you accept that Usain Bolt is a astronomically rare genetic freak (which you just have) then you accept that some people have innate genetic factors that make them better at a sport than others.
Because people exist on a continuum and not in discrete boxes that means for a given subset of people, some people in that group have innate factors that advantage them over others in a particular tasks, just not at the extreme level of Phellps.
That means some people have 'talent', or as I like to say physiological factors that give them greater maximum potential.
The Olympics is not full of Usain Bolts. It is professional athletes AND Usain Bolt. Unless you think none of the other 100metre runners are professional athletes because they don't reach Bolts performance?
People manifestly and undeniably vary in their native attributes. Do some people have faster reflexes than others? Absolutely. If there is a book that says everyone has the same reflex speed, it may be worth looking at how the research was cherry picked to support a point.
In actual fact, studies have been done whereby sports athletes with greater levels of practice were asked to play less accomplished opponents whilst carrying out a simultaneous task unrelated to the sport (foot tapping X times in a minute, mental calculations) etc.
Even under a completely new cognitive load the atheltes were so well drilled in their sport they consistently beat amateurs who were focusing on nothing except trying to win.
Soldiers can do similar feats regarding drill and drivers do similar feats constantly. An accomplished driver can navigate a busy and hazardous environment whilst listening to music and daydreaming whilst a newer driver will struggle even if solely concentrating.
People who practice less very very rarely ever beat those more practiced and even then environmental factors are likely playing a massive part.
Once again, native attributes are largely myth. Barring disability almost all humans start on a relatively level biological playing field. The true modifier is self determination and environment.
No, no they aren't. At all. A simple glance around a crowded room shows this to be the case.
And if it were true, little girls and grandmas could successfully join the NBA if they just had enough determination. People who had been in the computer industry longer would be the billionaires since they had more experience rather than it being someone in their 20's.
(I'm not saying practice and experience aren't important).
Why would industry experience of IT automatically result in monetary reward? Your argument is straying way way beyond anything to do with the original comment.
Focussing on children versus adults or elderly people versus professional athletes is not a fair comparison.
Just to be clear, are you trying to say females are not good enough to play in the NBA?
Yes, I'm saying exactly that. Because... there is such thing as native talent and it's not just how much one practices. In general, men are stronger and can run faster than women... training being equal. And men are statistically taller than women. So... they have an advantage in a game where height is an advantage.
I don't even know why you would argue that point. It's biological fact.
Growing old or being a child is the same as genetic advantage? No, and I never claimed it was. The point was simply to illustrate the ridiculousness of the claim of humans being homogenous. Very clearly some people have an advantage over others in some activities. These people may require less practice to become "experts" than others... thus the 10,000 hour rule is at once nullified as "rule".
As for training in IT let me re-iterate the point... those with more practice in both tech and business didn't necessarily make more money while young people with less practice did. Presumably money was the goal of more than got it... even those that really really believed and tried very hard.
There is native grace. Believe it. Accept it. Know your strengths. Know your limitations. This is the key to survival and success. No... sorry in spite of what they told you in grade school, you can't be any thing you want to be if you simply put your mind to it and work really hard. That line might motivate some, but at the end of the day it is inherently and obviously untrue.
You are quite simply wrong. Not just your conclusions, but your entire understanding of native talent is incorrect.
It is not surprising you hold the viewpoint you do. If I started off thinking 2 + 2 = 5 then I would argue 4 + 4 = 10.
That is essentially what has happened here. You have misunderstood native talent, how it is defined and measured and are now arguing from a position of factual incorrectness. No point continuing really. It is obvious you will never read anything to change your own mind.
So, why do you think there are so few top basketball players under five feet nine (http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_shortest_players_in_N...)? So few rowers average lung volume?
I doubt that is self-selection/cultural (you're too short for the NBA, so it isn't worth trying) or correlation vs causation (your lung volume is high because you trained so much)
Weightlifting has a bias towards strong people, but if you ignore the fact that you have to lift heavy weights to win...
The OP's claim was that with enough effort and some luck, anybody could play at any level (including top level) at any sport, not "at any sport, after changing the definition of winning".
100metres has a bias towards fast people? What does that mean?
I wager if two males born on the same day on opposite ends of the earth trained 8 hours per day to run the 100 metres eating exactly the same diet and following the same training regime to the same intensity they would post almost identical 100 metres results.
The difference comes from the application of focussed practice. It is the mental intensity through which you train.
Jack Nicklaus famously said he has never just "hit a ball" in his life. Every single stroke of every single session was a genuine attempt to accomplish a defined goal. Every shot analysed. That is why he is arguably the greatest (or second greatest golfer) of all time. 99% of golfers just hit the ball.
Schwarzenegger pioneered the idea that you can literally will your muscles to grow larger by thinking about them tearing and rebuilding. Subsequently proven almost three decades after he was laughed at. [1]
Natural talent is the witch doctor name we give to those who practise harder, longer and better than we do. Syed also subsequently disproves the idea of Kenyan runners as champion long distance athletes. Another cognitive dissonance.
[1] http://docsfitnesstips.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/can-thinking-a... (Ignore the web address, it is the academic study he discusses and links to).
It is a comment on a comment to your comment, so it need not relate strongly to it.
"100metres has a bias towards fast people? What does that mean?"
It is analogous to the remark that basketball has a bias towards height, and IMO apt, because your claim was about any sport.
"I wager if two males born on the same day on opposite ends of the earth trained 8 hours per day to run the 100 metres eating exactly the same diet and following the same training regime to the same intensity they would post almost identical 100 metres results."
In the "nature vs nurture" debate, that is extremist towards nurture, to such an extent that I haven't heard it before, and find it hard to believe that anybody would hold that a view that extremist. One of those men might have been born without legs, with cystic fibrosis, or just with genes that predispose him towards long distance running rather than sprinting. And yes, those Kenyan runners may not have a genetic advantage in long distance running over other lightly built athletes (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22634972), but they surely have one over, say, Samoan men or pygmies.
In a highly competitive sport, you need both talent, hard work and a good environment for training (food, trainers, gym, etc) to become exceptional. You can compensate talent with hard work or a good training environment, and some do, but even for those, having more talent would (all other things being equal) make them even better.
"In a highly competitive sport, you need both talent..."
There is no such thing as talent.
This is where our arguments are diverging. Disproving talents shows that anyone in possession of the minimum required attributes (legs, eyes etc) can become World Class at a sport given optimum training conditions and luck.
Claiming that an Olympic sprinter is more naturally talented than someone born without legs is absurd and a hijacking of the word talent beyond all legitimate understanding.
The argument is not about Heavyweight Boxer versus Featherweight. It is about can Person A become a world class boxer at all? The answer is yes, they can with the correct training, mindset and luck.
To argue otherwise is not consistent with scientific research.
The point that Syed is making is not Play A of X height and Player B of Y height are equal. He reports (cited academic studies) that given the same height Player A and Player B have no intrinsic native advantages over each other - all advantages are cultural and luck. Player A may have a great coach, a great basketballing school etc or Player B may just simply work harder.
There are a legion of examples to back up his claims including the Williams sisters. Two prodigies who came from a family that had not even heard of Tennis until their father decided they would be tennis champions.
There is also Syed himself who played in the Olympic and Commonwealth Games at table tennis. Curiously enough 50% of the national team for table tennis also came from his street...
...lucky enough to be born next to a world class club.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3f0BggE__4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0svVz4kSWM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6qdM6O26CY
If you want to tell me how many hours training it would take to score that first try I am all ears.
Although to be fair, the stories of Rupeni Caucau are anecdotal. Contrast with the weightlifter and actor Carl Weathers who maintained he was just naturally muscled and athletic when he was in fact getting up at 3am to train and returning to bed at 430am so his co-stars never suspected his regime.
It infuriated Jesse Ventura and Arnold Schwarznegger to the point of on-set arguments. Weathers would just flex and claim "genetics does not need to lift weights."
For example, significant genetic factors may be: healing or failing to heal without permanent damage or being flexible in a way that causes or prevents a frequent injury.
For many star players the fact that they can keep playing at all may be the freak of genetics or initial behavior that allowed them to get to their level.
For example, football helmet impact data seems to support the direction that many should be dropping out due to traumatic brain injury. Yet some players deteriorate remarkably slower than medical science previously predicted.
I think this 10,000 hour idea is a vast oversimplification.
For example, it's often difficult to differentiate rate of progress from final ability.
As someone who has been involved with elite athletics, there are people out there who are simply better at absorbing training, in terms of biomechanics (mostly injury resistance), recovery, and compensation (getting stronger). I've seen lots of folks, new to a sport, with little training, absolutely crush mush more seasoned/conditioned folks. There are many examples of this (see: Chrissie Wellington). For each of them you can contrive some story "well, she lived at altitude", but that's the point, these people exist. And to be clear, I take nothing from Chrissie's worth ethic, etc. She's simply better than a whole host of other elite athletes that have worked hard their whole lives and she went out and clowned them for several years.
The difficult question is, if an average person kept at it for 10,000 hours, would Chrissie plateau and that average person catch up? And here you can substitute math, chess, coding, whatever.
I don't know, but both my sporting and software engineering experience (anecdotally, N=1) says no. Different people are sometimes differently suited to tasks. I'd love to understand the causation.
I assume that larger samples produce more extreme outliers, even as sample variability falls. This means more dominating freaks of nature.
The Russians, Bulgarians and Chinese dominate Weightlifting. They also happen to have far more lifters than other countries.
The same is true for maths, languages, chess, science - anything you care to name.
Proven by Laszlo.
Numerous agree natural talent is a myth
http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=search.displayRecord&uid...
http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1974-06238-001
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.2044-8295.1996....
Can you even define natural talent?