THE MYTH OF TALENT (long, opinionated rant)

[jerry_picker]

Originally posted by walt0915 Whew ... I don't know if any of you actually bothered to ready any of the articles that Dog-boy was going on about. I did. They were interesting, but I must say rather self-serving. First, the premise of them is this: there is no genetic attribute for musical aptitude. First, it is well known that such arguments among psychologists have raged for decades at least. Such an argument is only sopisticated mental masturbation. It is rather difficult to prove a genetic link, since it is nearly impossible to remove an environmental influences. And of course, these papers dismiss any evidence where any environmental influences exist, and then claim there is no evidence at all supporting a genetic factor. Second, they make the assumption that if there is a genetic factor, it is absolute. Thus they claim if you have it you should become a virtuoso musician, and if you don't you should be capable of playing an instrument any better than a novice. Since this clearly isn't the case, they claim there must not be a genetic factor. A similar argument is that it must be a single factor, and require no environmental influence. Of course this is silly, since the likelyhood is there are several general factors that must come into play to create "talent" reglardless of whether talent is genetic, enviromental, or a combination. Last, the "research" itself is secondary at best. IOW, the arguments made are based mostly on drawing conclusions from studies conducted by others that may or may not have a strong scientific foundation. These papers do not involve what anyone in my field would consider proper scientific research. You know, the kind with hypothesis, experiment, refinement, etc. THis is typical of psychology research, what people in engineering call "soft science." I suppose in their field that is what passes for science, but I, for one, was not impressed. This is made all the worse by Dog-boy who takes much of it out of context and flings it about as if he's proving something. But then, I didn't get the impression anyone here was won over.

 

 

That is more attention than such "research" deserves. Once something is identified as garbage what's the use in putting it back on the dinner plate in the off chance that it's a fine delicacy?

 

If any activity, behaviour, process occurs in a physical substrate, then genetics is involved and central, by definition. There is no part of a human's physical being that is not fundamentally underscored by a genetic basis. Nothing. The influence of environment, all plasticity and development, MUST occur on a genetically determined substrate. To say otherwise is to deny most of what has been learned in biology over the past 50 years.

 

To start with a premise that this is not the case is a masturbatory exercise in speculative philosophy, but it is not science.

 

If the non-geneticist music experts want to found a whole new branch of science that denies the central dogma of molecular biology, that's great. If they are right, whole disciplines will be gutted, Nobel prizewinners will be flipping burgers, and the bachelor's of science summa cum laude types will take over the Biology Departments and Medical Basic Science faculties at major teaching and research institutions around the world.

 

We have been warned...

[Jim_Soloway]

The only reason I can think of to deny the existance of talent would be to provide an excuse to someone who doesn't have any.

[jerry_picker]

Originally posted by Jim_Soloway The only reason I can think of to deny the existance of talent would be to provide an excuse to someone who doesn't have any.

Or to try to SELL them something!

[leadfootdriver]

Talent is no Myth. Circumstances, knowledge, drive and support all have an influence. But at the end of the day, either you have it, or you don't.

We're all delt life cards. It's up to the individual to pursue their desires.

[Jimi Ray Halen]

We've all met some people who just can't play no matter how hard they try.
And we've all met people who seem to take to it naturally.
Maybe it's an aptitude.
I agree that most people can learn how to play just about anything if they stick with it long enough.
But to be able to write songs like Jimi (for example) - well, no amount of practice will get you there.
That's talent.
And it's rare.

[walt0915]

To me, the word "talen" does not refer to a purely genetic construct anyway. Anyone can learn, and many can become good, and some very good, and a few outstanding, and one in a million will be a "genius" (for lack of a better word). Genetic dispositions are critical in where many people will end up, but it also takes work and the right nurturing.

Further, measuring all of that is beyond our current technology. The rest is self-serving rhetoric.

[Shocker]

I suppose one model to view talent (which I presuppose exists) is to view it as a modulus, on a (linear, I guess) function of hours spent, so like

aptitude = (talent) x (practice).

We can see, for instance, that after 1 hour of practice with the same instructor, that there will be a noticable difference in certain students- this will play itself out more as you extrapolate the hours- by 40 hours of study, no two players will play the same way or have learned at the same rate.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, this model is hyper-simplistic for what is a very readily apparent phenomena in human physiology- that some students learn faster than others do. As Jim Soloway said, the only reason to deny this is to issue a rationalization, whatever the rationalization may be for (certainly it appears here that Auggie is attempting to sell his books).

To deny this is to say you've never observed a difference in learning aptitude from one student to the next. I would question the observational and teaching skills of such a person.

//S

[jerry_picker]

Originally posted by walt0915 Genetic dispositions are critical in where many people will end up, but it also takes work and the right nurturing.

 

 

That "disposition" is indeed critical, and is the basis upon which that work and nurturing have their effect.

[guitar-fish]

All I know after 8 years of goofing off is...whatever *IT* is...I wasn't given very much of *IT*.

[starfire_Xes]

Originally posted by bobmeredith Ok, More yays than nays, so here it is. THE MYTH OF TALENT 10 Something I can

[jerry_picker]

Originally posted by Auggie Doggie "Genetic disorder" being the operative phrase.

Genius' level talents like Mozart and Mendelssohn are so rare as to beg the question as to whether they are freakish genetic anomalies, and so not subject to your definitions.

However, if that is true, then ANYONE who may appear to have characteristics that undermine your views might be dismissed on the basic of being "genetic anomalies".
Compared to the unwashed (and marginally trainable) masses, ANYONE with real talent might be a genetic anomaly!