I would say that you could generalize this even further outside of education. A few early successes in life can greatly accelerate one's trajectory, while early failures could set one many years back. And this happens independently of whether those events are due to skill or luck.

> I'm fond of saying "You can do anything you want, but wanting is the hard part", because to truly be a grandmaster, genius-level mathematician, olympic athlete, etc, requires a dedication and

I was having a problem agreeing with this subthread, and I have you to thank for putting it into words that I can finally formulate my disagreement against.

Have you never met one of those people for whom they did not need to "want"? They could literally phone it in and still do better than anyone else, no matter how dedicated they were. Even should practice/study be necessary for them, they benefited from it to some absurd proportion that I couldn't even guess to quantify. I've known more than one of these people.

I think most believe they don't exist for two reasons. The first is the ridiculous number of television shows and movies that depict motivation as being the key to success. We're just inundated with the (unsupported by evidence) that this is the means to extraordinary genius. Second, I would say that this is the most comforting theory. "Why yes, I could have been a gifted whatever or a talented something-or-other if I had put the time in, but I chose this other thing instead."

Maybe some would say we all need to believe this, that a society that doesn't believe in it is harsher or more unkind.

Bobby Fisher won his first US Championships at 14 against people who had been playing chess longer than he had been alive. Suggesting they didn't want it more, or practice more than some kid is silly.

"We can't on one hand believe in the plasticity and retrainability of the mind, while simultaneously believing that speed is something only a few are born with."

Sure we can, the initial orientation of neurons differs between people, so some people need less "plasticity and retrainability" to be good at a task. Plasticity is physical characteristic like height and varies between people.

Initial speed usually isn't that important, but speed of learning is important and makes the difference between possible and impossible within a human lifetime.

Intelligence is also not a skill, but the thing that makes you skillful in all cognitive tasks. Just like what height does to basketball players.

Height is one physical attribute that helps, and professional players are mostly above average height for a reason. But also hand-eye coordination and fast-twitch muscles help even more. Many basketball players are very explosive athletes, because it's a sport with a relatively small play area and lots of quick movements are needed.

Track and swimming are where innate physical attributes have the most obvious benefits. Michael Phelphs had the perfect body for swimming. There is no amount of trainingg that 99.999% of the population could do to get close to what Usain Bolt ran. Most humans could not train to run under 4 minutes in a mile or under 2:30 in a marathon. They just don't have the right muscular and cardiovascular physiology.

Team sports are of course more complicated as other qualities come into play that aren't as directly physiological.

Since we are being pedantic, your statement may be true but it is unsupported by the data you presented. To make it simple, let's talk about the imaginary basketball league with four players, of unit less heights of 4, 4, 4, and 1. The average height is 3.25, yet 3/4 the players are taller than average.

A paid promotion of International Median is not Average Association.

parent comment was a bit tounge-in-cheek but I'll continue the sentiment: You're saying that the curiosity is "natural" hence one is either born with it or not. I think that there is no way around the fact that it will be hard and uncomfortable to mimic the progress of someone that has an innate inclination towards a subject (be it talent or focus or curiosity) artificially.

> I'd love to see the evidence for this; i'm deeply skeptical.

Cool, come and have a coffee with me :) I have older and younger siblings and was the one randomly blessed.

Whereas most recognised talents are associated with hard work and so there is then this visible link, I am a good example as I did the bare minimum throughout education (and beyond...).

The way my brain processes and selectively discards/stores the information it receives is very different to majority of the population. I have no control over it.

I take zero credit for any of my achievments - I regularly meet intelligent people near to retirement who have been to a tier 1 university, may have PHDs, worked 60 hours a week since they were born, been on course and what not and cannot reach the levels I can.

My nurturing was no different to siblings/peers (and was terrible!)

Note: I have my weaknesses too, but as a whole, I am exceptional. Not through effort!! Completely random - neither of my parents are intelligent and nothing up the ancestary tree as far as I know.

Intellect is like a gas, it will expand to fill its container. The container, in humans, is epigenetic and social — genetics only determines how hot or cold your gas is, ie how fast and how fluidly it expands, but you’re taught your limits — it’s best to see stupid as not how limited you are relative to other but what limits you have now and may abandon in the future.

That said, some people received a smaller starting container, and might need some help cracking it. That’s the work of those who think they’ve found a bigger one.

The inborn part is how quickly you get results (good or bad). Stupidity is the results.

If we spent 50% of time thinking productively - inborn thinking speed would matter. But in my estimate even 5% is generous.

So it matters far more what kind of feedback you have to filter out the wrong results, and how much time you spend thinking - than how quickly you can do it.

Also practice helps with speed.

At such cost with such narrow advantage, why has it persisted so pervasively? I would counter that the advantage is wider and the cost narrower than your current value system is allowing you to accept.

Yes, there is a significant cost to being built differently regardless of perceived advantages (by one's self or others). For example, as an autistic, I have to cope with finding interaction with non-autistics quite difficult for me, even if detail-oriented thinking can make certain tasks seem easier to me.