God given gift or just practice?

[cliveh]

Ken, you could yet be a world class gymnast, you just need to practice.

 

[moose10101]

No, they were developed with dedication of practice.

I could have developed fast-twitch muscles and extreme hand-eye coordination just through practice? Who knew?

 

[analoguey]

I dunno about fast-twitch muscles. But this man sure can run marathons at the young age of 101 and this man took up painting at 60, and wasn't bad at it either.

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

Ken, you could yet be a world class gymnast, you just need to practice.

Do you honestly realize what it takes to become a world-class gymnast? Really?

I suspect if you did you would never even think of making such a statement. I could no more become a world-class gymnast (even back then) than I could spontaneously become a giraffe. Not because of lack of desire. Because of lack of physics.

It's all well and good to believe that one can do anything at all they set their mind to. But it's a little less of a good idea to then jump out of an airplane without a parachute because one believes that if they just want it badly enough they can fly.

And as an aside, do you realize that you have avoided almost every question I have asked in this discussion? Why is that?

Ken

 

[cliveh]

Do you honestly realize what it takes to become a world-class gymnast? Really?Ken

Dedication and practice.

 

[MattKing]

Dedication and practice.

You have to be really dedicated to agree to be "shortened" to an appropriate height.

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

Dedication and practice.

Anything else you think might remotely come in handy?

(Hint: It starts with a 'T' and can be coached, but not taught...)

Ken

 

[cliveh]

Anything else you think might remotely come in handy?

(Hint: It starts with a 'T' and can be coached, but not taught...)

Ken

History shows there are always exceptions to the rule.

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

You have to be really dedicated to agree to be "shortened" to an appropriate height.

Heh, heh... yeah...

Funny thing was that at my size when I stepped onto the basketball court I was always the smallest at my position. Those other guys were always 6-foot 8-inches and about 245-pounds and had much more of the 'T' word. Lamb to the slaughter. Geez Louise...

That's why today I have torn ligaments in both ankles, three knee surgeries across two knees, and a 180-degree almost broken completely off index finger on my left hand.



Did have fun, though. (When I wasn't in the hospital.)

Ken

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

History shows there are always exceptions to the rule.

Yes. Those would be the 1st and 99th percentiles on the curve. The rest of us, including you and I, live not far from the rule-defining 50th percentile right smack in the middle. Maybe a bit higher or a bit lower, but still within that big bump. That goes for pretty much everyone else here as well.

Consider that if any of us really were a part of either the 1st or 99th percentiles, for dramatically different reasons between the two we really wouldn't be here on APUG debating those percentiles.

And no amount of extra effort or wishful thinking is ever going to move us halfway across the chart into that 99th slot either, Clive. We'd have to jump over literally billions of people to make such a drastic move. Sorry, it just doesn't work like that in the real world.

Ken

 

[Dinesh]

Do you honestly realize what it takes to become a world-class gymnast? Really?

I suspect if you did you would never even think of making such a statement.
Ken

I can't believe that I am actually agreeing with Ken.

Somebody call for weather report in hell, because it must have just frozen over.

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

I can't believe that I am actually agreeing with Ken.

Somebody call for weather report in hell, because it must have just frozen over.

Sorry. Didn't intend to put you on the spot.

I'm willing to share the bus bench for just a moment or two if you are.



Ken

 

[MattKing]

I once finished in the 99th percentile in a large, well recognized, international aptitude test.

It intimidated some who knew about it, but I knew that it just meant that:
1) I had some aptitude; and
2) I did really well on that test.

The school that I got into as a result of a few things, including that test, really impressed me, because there were a whole bunch of people there who were incredibly talented.

 

[Truzi]

I really don't see what the simple OP has to do with extreme cases. I don't think the question meant to ask whether absolutely everyone can be an Einstein. Rather, I took it to mean whether _most_ people have the ability to be very good and accomplished at something - not necessarily the unequivocal best. The term "gift" seemed to be used as "ability."

The example of choosing photography because one cannot draw is not saying one became Ansel Adams (or whomever) because they cannot draw like Michelangelo (or whomever). It is more like one cannot draw well, so put effort elsewhere. In cases like these, I would argue effort can lead one to draw (or whatever) very well - above the average non-drawer.

If we must go to extremes, one does not have to be in the top 90th percentile to be considered gifted or talented. As a matter of fact, if we want to use the words "gifted" and invoke percentiles, we should define whether we are talking a standard distribution or just pulling things out of... the air. Is it a twin-tail distribution? Are we discussing standard deviations?

If the "experts" (notice these experts were not said to be gifted) understand the truth of inequality, is it possible there is a context in that understanding that we are all missing? If one must be at the genius level to truly understand these things beyond a "Discovery Channel way" then how can anyone in this thread be able to state anything true on the subject?

(By the way, this is a fun debate, and we're all being civil... I'm enjoying it.)

 

[Bill Burk]

Ken,

I'm not an expert, this is just a thought-provoking idea.

I'm not trying to prove you're wrong, just want to find where our agreement overlaps...

I'll agree to your tale of The Elite if you agree that you might be using the easy abbreviation 1% while thinking about really a tiny fraction of 1% whose Enormous Talent raises them above all others and makes them a Household Name. I believe there are some rare people you can call Genius, and we are lucky to have a few in our midst today and a few we remember historically to turn to for inspiration.

But literally 1% of photographers is a very low bar. I am sure several of us in this conversation are in the top 1%. And I believe many of us got there by Practice with average Talent. Some of us lazy ones might have gotten to the 1% with Talent and just a little Practice (I might be in that group).

Now take it to a tenth, or a hundredth of 1% and you are talking about someone with Talent and Practice, like cliveh.

Take it to a thousandth of 1% and we might recognize their name. Those are the Geniuses who I must concede owe a great deal to something they received at the time they were born.

But I still believe for the greater part of the scale of ability from 0.01% to 99.99% you can measure Intelligence and estimate Practice and get an Intelligence Quotient. You know how IQ works. Someone who's 55 and doesn't have a lot of Talent can have enough Practice to take photographs that could pass for the work of a Talented 20 year old.

 

[removed account4]

I too would agree that Tom Waits is gifted.

But I also understand the neighbours of a friend of mine who, several years ago, was threatened with eviction if he didn't stop playing his Tom Waits albums loud and into all hours of the night.

yeah i know what you mean ... moderation - thing...
and moderation is a something isn't a born with / gift, but something that is learned through
practice and dedication ...

 

[markbarendt]

Einstein had gifts which could not be evaluated by average people using average measurement systems.

Your question implies that normal standards can't measure the exceptions and that's part of the point I've been making all along.

Am I to understand some of you seriously believe something like general relativity was simply the result of giving a problem more thought?

Yep, pretty much that's it.

Of course that is an over simplification. He also had the necessary resources and support and help over a very long period.

 

[Bill Burk]

Yep, pretty much that's it.

Of course that is an over simplification. He also had the necessary resources and support and help over a very long period.

Interesting. I think the resources and support were necessary. And the long time spent studying it. But I think Einstein suddenly just "got it". And when someone "gets it" (whatever "it" is)... It can take you from point A to point B in an immeasurably short time.

 

[Bill Burk]

Wait. Did I just present evidence for the opposing position?

I mean anyone can be as intelligent as Einstein given enough hard work.

Shoot. Which side am I on?

 

[Alan Klein]

Success=10% inspiration; 90% perspiration.

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

Yep, pretty much that's it.

Of course that is an over simplification. He also had the necessary resources and support and help over a very long period.

Mark, are you familiar at all with Einstein's Annus Mirabilis papers? If not, this link is Wikipedia's short summary article covering them. The article describes what may well be the greatest single intellectual burst by any individual in the history of mankind. Four astounding scientific papers, all published in 1905, that essentially rewrote the science of physics as it had existed for hundreds of years.

The point here is that he did all of this entirely on his own while working as a lowly patent clerk in Switzerland because he was unable to find work as a lecturer in a university setting. As he was completely isolated from the academic world at that time, he used to take long walks with a coworker who would listen quietly to him while he fleshed out his ideas. Years later he credited this individual by saying he "could not have found a better sounding board for his ideas in all of Europe". Beyond that individual he received no other significant input whatsoever.

When one publishes into a peer-reviewed scientific journal it is customary and expected to cite the previous publications of those who came before you, and upon who earlier efforts one has extended from and built the current work. In the paper that first describes special relativity, there is not a single reference to any earlier published work. None. That paper stands completely alone as a work fully derived from Einstein's own mind.

I wish I could convey to you the spine-tingling sense of wonderment that last observation still invokes in scientific historians to this day. Not a single citation in the entire work. He thought it up entirely on his own during his lunch hour breaks from his job as a desk clerk.

I'm not sure that the vast bulk of the APUG membership is truly aware of what genius level accomplishment really is. The term is cheapened by its constant reference to this person's silly photos, or that person's darkroom acumen, or someone else's kitchen chemistry. While these may be noble accomplishments where we sit on the curve, they are beyond laughable when set against the truly genius accomplishments of the Annus Mirabilis.

Here they are:

"On a Heuristic Viewpoint Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light", submitted March 18th. This is the photoelectric effect paper, and won him the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics.

"On the Motion of Small Particles Suspended in a Stationary Liquid, as Required by the Molecular Kinetic Theory of Heat", submitted May 11th. This is the Brownian motion paper.

"On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies", submitted June 30th. This is the special relativity paper containing zero citations.

"Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?" submitted September 27th. This is the mass-energy equivalence paper (E=mc2).​

The period spanning March 18, 1905 through September 27, 1905 is only 193 days, or about 27½ weeks. So not really a very long period at all, considering he managed to reduce Issac Newton's entire mechanical universe into a small subset of his own new creation. On his lunch hour.

Holy crap...

Would that the rest of us all here could do as much during our lunch breaks, instead of just surfing APUG...



Ken

 

[analoguey]

Ken,

Mark, are you familiar at all with Einstein's Annus Mirabilis papers? If not, this link is Wikipedia's short summary article covering them. The article describes what may well be the greatest single intellectual burst by any individual in the history of mankind. Four astounding scientific papers, all published in 1905, that essentially rewrote the science of physics as it had existed for hundreds of years.

The point here is that he did all of this entirely on his own while working as a lowly patent clerk in Switzerland because he was unable to find work as a lecturer in a university setting. As he was completely isolated from the academic world at that time, he used to take long walks with a coworker who would listen quietly to him while he fleshed out his ideas. Years later he credited this individual by saying he "could not have found a better sounding board for his ideas in all of Europe". Beyond that individual he received no other significant input whatsoever.

When one publishes into a peer-reviewed scientific journal it is customary and expected to cite the previous publications of those who came before you, and upon who earlier efforts one has extended from and built the current work. In the paper that first describes special relativity, there is not a single reference to any earlier published work. None. That paper stands completely alone as a work fully derived from Einstein's own mind.

I wish I could convey to you the spine-tingling sense of wonderment that last observation still invokes in scientific historians to this day. Not a single citation in the entire work. He thought it up entirely on his own during his lunch hour breaks from his job as a desk clerk..

The period spanning March 18, 1905 through September 27, 1905 is only 193 days, or about 27½ weeks. So not really a very long period at all, considering he managed to reduce Issac Newton's entire mechanical universe into a small subset of his own new creation. On his lunch hour.

Holy crap...

Would that the rest of us all here could do as much during our lunch breaks, instead of just surfing APUG...



Ken

you are running the risk of oversimplifying things.
Since we are quoting Wiki, and from the same source:

Here's another one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relativity_priority_dispute


Also, you are debunking your argument of everyone cant be like Einstein by saying we could all do that if we used our lunch breaks well! :munch:

 

[BrianShaw]

Success=10% inspiration; 90% perspiration.

I was telling that to my boss just yesterday. He agreed so it must be correct.

 

[Truzi]

The wikipedia article did not say he had NO access to journals and the like, but he did not have "easy" access. Also, he could not have come up with his theories had he not had exposure to and knowledge of the subjects at hand (specifically as he addressed specific subjects). He solved "problems" that existed in the scientific community, so he obviously had some knowledge not only of the extant theories, but of the problems.

Getting published in a scientific journal was different in the early 1900s than it is now. Not citing someone else did not mean he did not draw upon others' work (either in supporting or refuting).

Also, reading about Einstein, it is difficult to imagine he only considered these things during his lunch hours. I'm sure these thoughts were constantly on his mind.

 

[removed account4]

I was telling that to my boss just yesterday. He agreed so it must be correct.

i think you should start a wiki article on it, or at least have a stub on another article 8D