I don't think I entirely agree. If you're correct, why doesn't anyone point at a famous portrait painting by a renowned artist, or a photorealistic pencil sketch of a fruit bowl and say, "anyone could do that"? These works might have very little creative effort, but people recognize they wouldn't be able to reproduce such a piece, so they don't make that statement. Instead, they look over at that painting with the square patches of color (https://cdn.kastatic.org/ka-perseus-images/f832e28211a5c9793...) and say their child could do that.
So, when someone says, "anyone could do that", it's likely a statement about being able to produce a similar piece of art. Could they paint a painting similar to the squares above that people could mistake as another painting from the same artist? Yes, so they make that statement. Could they write a novel that could be mistaken as a follow-up book from a famous writer? Not likely, so they don't say it. So, it's not a statement about being able to directly copy the work (like I might have referred to in my previous comment), or a reference to the creative effort involved, but a statement about being able to produce a similar piece. However, I think people mostly take into consideration the technical ability of the artist, they overlook the creative process to reach that point, and they're focused on a single piece when a large part of the talent is in being able to consistently produce such work.
> If you're correct, why doesn't anyone point at a famous portrait painting by a renowned artist, or a photorealistic pencil sketch of a fruit bowl and say, "anyone could do that"? These works might have very little creative effort, but people recognize they wouldn't be able to reproduce such a piece, so they don't make that statement.
The reason that people won't say "anyone could do that" about something that is indeed incredibly difficult is simply because it would be a clearly false claim. I didn't try to list all cases where people would not say that. I only explained what I think people generally mean when they do say that. Of course most people cannot do these supposedly "uncreative" yet difficult tasks like running really fast or lifting very heavy weights [0].
People say "anyone could do that" about things which they think are fairly simple to physically reproduce and which they think required very little creative effort. Physically reproducing a famous novel on a typewriter is relatively simple, but the creative effort required is clearly immense. Thus people do not say "anyone could do that." Physically reproducing hundreds of pages of seemingly random text like "asdfasdfasdf" is roughly as easy as reproducing the famous novel, but certainly appears to require much less creative effort. If someone was shown a book with hundreds of pages of that seemingly random text, they very well might say "anyone can do that."
[0] I actually reject this part entirely, because I suspect world-class excellence in all of these things actually do require a great deal of creativity and original problem-solving in honing one's mental and physical states. Photorealistic pencil sketches, for example, presumably require no less creativity than photography, and photography is widely recognized as a creative art form.
So, when someone says, "anyone could do that", it's likely a statement about being able to produce a similar piece of art. Could they paint a painting similar to the squares above that people could mistake as another painting from the same artist? Yes, so they make that statement. Could they write a novel that could be mistaken as a follow-up book from a famous writer? Not likely, so they don't say it. So, it's not a statement about being able to directly copy the work (like I might have referred to in my previous comment), or a reference to the creative effort involved, but a statement about being able to produce a similar piece. However, I think people mostly take into consideration the technical ability of the artist, they overlook the creative process to reach that point, and they're focused on a single piece when a large part of the talent is in being able to consistently produce such work.