> 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.

I am also exceptional in many ways, (some of them negative), and some of this is clearly inherited and likely genetic. I share too many innate strengths with my father and, to a lesser extent, my siblings to disagree with this. But I just don't know how you could preclude developmental factors like "when you started reading as a child", "what sort of puzzles and games you played as a child", "lack of trauma as a child", etc.