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RedskinRat · 08-14-2013, 03:43 PM

The Sports Gene - David Epstein

What’s wrong with the 10,000-hour rule? In part, Mr. Ericsson’s research was oversimplified by Mr. Gladwell in “Outliers,” leading everyone from sports athletes to Wall Street hedge-fund managers to employ it in their explanations of success. (The supposedly triumphant example in “Outliers” was the Beatles, who Mr. Gladwell claims owed their success largely to the 10,000 hours they played in dingy nightclubs in Liverpool and Hamburg, Germany—selectively ignoring the thousands of garage bands who put in their 10,000 hours and still stink.) As Mr. Epstein notes, 10,000 hours is an average. What is more revealing is the range. A 2007 study on chess players, for example, found that the average number of hours logged to make it to the level of “master” was 11,000 hours, but the range spanned from 3,000 hours for one player to 23,000 hours for another. Even more telling, several players in the study put in more than 25,000 hours of practice and study and never made it to the master level. That is the mystery that The Sports Gene explains so well.

And:

The Sports Gene is bound to put the cat among the pigeons in the blank-slate crowd who think that we can all be equal as long as we equalize environmental inputs such as practice. But the science says that it just ain’t so. Not even 10,000 hours of wishful thinking will change nature.

Cursed from birth, damn it!

08-14-2013, 03:43 PM	#304
RedskinRat Franchise Player Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: I'm in LA, trick! Posts: 8,700	Re: All things Science related. λν = c The Sports Gene - David Epstein What’s wrong with the 10,000-hour rule? In part, Mr. Ericsson’s research was oversimplified by Mr. Gladwell in “Outliers,” leading everyone from sports athletes to Wall Street hedge-fund managers to employ it in their explanations of success. (The supposedly triumphant example in “Outliers” was the Beatles, who Mr. Gladwell claims owed their success largely to the 10,000 hours they played in dingy nightclubs in Liverpool and Hamburg, Germany—selectively ignoring the thousands of garage bands who put in their 10,000 hours and still stink.) As Mr. Epstein notes, 10,000 hours is an average. What is more revealing is the range. A 2007 study on chess players, for example, found that the average number of hours logged to make it to the level of “master” was 11,000 hours, but the range spanned from 3,000 hours for one player to 23,000 hours for another. Even more telling, several players in the study put in more than 25,000 hours of practice and study and never made it to the master level. That is the mystery that The Sports Gene explains so well. And: The Sports Gene is bound to put the cat among the pigeons in the blank-slate crowd who think that we can all be equal as long as we equalize environmental inputs such as practice. But the science says that it just ain’t so. Not even 10,000 hours of wishful thinking will change nature. Cursed from birth, damn it!