

The Rage to Master: The Decisive Role of Talent in the Visual Arts (1996) [pdf] - networked
https://www2.bc.edu/ellen-winner/pdf/talent_in_visual_arts.pdf

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hsitz
I'm not sure their paper establishes it, but I'll given them the point that
hard work _alone_ is not enough to reach the highest levels. However, the
paper seems to jump directly from that point to the conclusion that "talent is
the _decisive_ element", which of course does not logically follow.

I will give them that talent is one element, but they didn't need to write a
paper to convince me of that. And as far as disentangling the relative
importance of talent as compared to hard work, I would say the paper does
nothing at all.

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bsder
Not a particularly good article.

It provides no statistical evidence. In addition, we know that many people who
claim to be engaging in "deliberate practice" are not.

The Bulletproof Musician blog (warning: it's attempting to sell a method) is
full of stuff about this. Quite often, there are significant differences in
execution and strategy.

For example: [http://www.bulletproofmusician.com/the-two-most-efficient-
an...](http://www.bulletproofmusician.com/the-two-most-efficient-and-two-
least-efficient-memorization-strategies/)

While I might argue that talent matters at the very highest echelons, _very_
few people actually put in enough time to get to the point that it matters.

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mr_luc
I'm unfamiliar with this domain, but this stuck out to me:

"By talent, we refer to an innate ability _or proclivity to learn in a
particular domain_."

Is this redefining "talent" to include people's _taste_? Ie, does "natural
talent" as defined above now include the fact that someone likes/is drawn to
something, and thus decides to spend time on it?

