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But wouldn't that same extension of differences apply to any animal?

It does. Animals of the same species vary in their abilities (how fast they run, how efficiently they hunt).

If our genotype variation is limited to about 1/1,000th that of chimpanzees,

I was not aware that chimpanzees have such a high genotype variation (at least I don't recall it). That is surprising to me. (send me more info by PM).

The functional difference in elite athletes seems to be less than 1% (looking at a random sample of the top 3 finishers of a few events in the 2008 Olympics) While they may be 10x better than you or I, who have not gone through the same training, they are not 10x better than their counterparts who have.

There are other possible explanations (not just the one you leaning toward). For example, this is a group of people who maybe approaching the limits of humanly possible. This is certainly not a random sampling - they have been selected from among the people who also trained the same way yet were not as good.

If you look at kids you can observe great skill variability - before any specialized training had taken place.

I see little evidence that significant or big functional differences come from genes in our physical development, and the evidence to me suggests that is even less likely regarding mental capacity, given the extremely limited genetic variation that controls the human brain.

I have already addressed the variation part. Much greater variability is observed at the protein level and we are just at the beginning of studying those variations and their implications.

This wasnt due to a chess gene, but the tools to teach and learn chess have become much more available and powerful, which enables so many more people to reach this level.

The spread of information is faster and reaches more people thus you will statistically find more cases of people capable of the same thing.

It's clear that a mathematical genius will be more likely to rear a mathematically genius child, but if that child is raised in an entirely different environment would they end up as a mathematical genius still?

He may not. We are not born with knowledge or skills - a person has to acquire it (exposure is necessary). To some it just comes much easier to gain it (all things being equal) - that is all I am saying.

The largest separately reared identical twin studies show that IQ is roughly 85% similar between them,

We are only 2% or so different genetically from chimps yet that 2% makes a huge difference. I am not sure how you arrive at the conclusion which you do. Judgments about significance must be made based on tested empirical data and not speculation. Small difference can be very significant.

For many skills (and ability requirements to finish a project) this variation may not be very significant and many people can get there given reasonable amount of effort but for others when the absolute best is required it may be.

Why is it so troubling to think that we are not equal in this way? Because personally it does not bother me the slightest. I think that everyone should make choices that are the best in their particular context. I am better at some things than others and thus I choose to invest my time accordingly.

...and that is certainly applicable here. Take any task and group of people, and (especially as they get older) some will have done more things in their lives that relate to the ability to pick up this particular skill. They may have learned a similar skill, or integrated a better technique for learning new things, or learned an entirely different skill which happens to be related to this one in a non obvious way.

True that is why you should look much younger. Get yourself a kid or two :) and do some experimenting.

Edited by ~Sophia~
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It does. Animals of the same species vary in their abilities (how fast they run, how efficiently they hunt).

Right, the point is then that the extensive phenotype variation is not relevant when considering the limited genetic variation of the human species, because all species exhibit similar extensions in phenotype variation but only humans (in the context of this discussion) apparently have such a limited genetic variation. The overall available variations are just as limited.

I was not aware that chimpanzees have such a high genotype variation (at least I don't recall it). That is surprising to me. (send me more info by PM).

I'll have to dig the sources up. The leading suggestion for the limited genetic variation in humans is that the entire breeding adult human population dwindled to about 1,000 adults about 70,000 years ago, a time which coincides with the indonesia caldera volcano eruption.

There are other possible explanations (not just the one you leaning toward). For example, this is a group of people who maybe approaching the limits of humanly possible. This is certainly not a random sampling - they have been selected from among the people who also trained the same way yet were not as good.

A valid point. However, how would we distinguish between these two scenarios?

In one, (mine) the resultant Olympic level athletes are only the ones who through training and perseverance made it to that skill level, where there final individual differences, amounting to about 1% among each other, are probably primarily from their genetic variations.

In the other scenario, These are only the top 1% of humans in the first place who also happened to have trained this long and this hard, and their resulting 1% variation is compounded with the 1% sampling.

My suggestion is that that these genetic differences don't play a large role in any person until you reach this level of training, you seem to be suggesting that the genetic difference plays a large role in getting to this difference in the first place. In other words, if we take a sample of 1,000 adults, put them through identical rigorous training, diet, etc, and assume they all have the same passion and dedication to the goal, would the best person be 1% better than the worst? 10% better? 100% better?

Obviously this is an extremely difficult variable to isolate. It seems your possible explanation assumes that the primary reason for quitting is because you train as hard, but aren't as good. There are a myriad of reasons why one person might not be as good as another that extend beyond genetic differences. I can't speak to the major reasons why athletes give up, but the vast majority of them won't know that they are this good until they all ready put the years and years of effort in anyway. You must first get your body to it's peak potential performance capacity before the genetic difference among individuals in that peak potential performance envelope become obvious. They may also train poorly, not have the same passion or dedication, or choose to pursue a different course in life. How many simply decide it's not worth the gamble in the genetic card game and opt for payouts that are more plausible? How dedicated would you be to spend 10 years of intense training only to find out that the guy from Kenya has a genetic advantage over you that no matter how hard you train you can not compete against? Then it's back home with no job and no skills (except running)

Can we look to other areas where a large number of typical people are put through the same training and diet regime and see what their ultimate differences end up as? The only similar scenario I can think of is the PFT. The US Army has a standard physical fitness test, to pass the minimum requirements a 22-26 year old must run 2 miles (3.2km) in 16:30. The closest Olympic event is the 3km steeplechase. Reducing the Army standard to a 3.0 km instead of 3.2 would be about 15:20. The average age of the first heat of the male 3km steeple chase in the 2008 olympics top 10 finishers was 24.4 years old, and average time was 8:30. Granted, they are jumping over hurdles as well, but in this example, the worlds best trained most elite athletes and presumably most genetically gifted run 3 kilometers in about half the time that the US army lists as the minimum requirement. After one month of basic training about 90% of recruits who have not dropped out for other reasons pass the PFT. The top score is given at 12:00 minutes, which about 5% of recruits score.

So, your average person after one month of training can run the same distance as an Olympic athlete at half the speed, and 5% of them can run the same distance in about 66% of the speed. With the same training and diet, they differ from each other by about 20%. I think it's pretty reasonable to assume that with more training (since this is only 1 month) that difference will get perpetually smaller. Until after about a decade you hit your peak potential performance, at the Olympic athlete level, where they differ from each other at about 1%

I just don't see the evidence that at some point genetics show a person to be leaps and bounds more able than their counterparts, and that the vast majority of performance difference comes from the habits and choices made throughout life.

If you look at kids you can observe great skill variability - before any specialized training had taken place.

I disagree on this, that the skill variability is not related to any specialized training. At this young age, the majority of your differences specifically come from habits and skills (from choices) you've made throughout your life and the more varied and active you are in any particular area and the younger the age the more profound the difference will have on you, because in fact your are physiologically developing at the same time, and your habits and choices can actually alter your body. Once you are an adult, your ability to alter your body is limited to some epigenetics. My favorite example of this is Tori Allen, a young female speed rock climbing phenom, watch here

win the xgames gold or here doing 4 finger pull ups or this segment on

She can do 2 finger pull ups, at 13 broke all the adult climbing records, has the grip strength of an NFL Athlete, her arm length exceeds her body length and has large, oversized hands, fingers, and knuckles. Neither of her parents have these traits. Instead, she acquired them because as a young girl she lived in Africa and her best friend was a small spider monkey, she basically spent all her free time climbing around trees with her Monkey. Because she was doing this while she was growing and developing, her body responded to the stresses and became more optimized for climbing. These developmental conditional advantages put her leaps and bounds over her competitors, but they are not genetic in origin.

Similarly, Tiger woods was hitting golf balls before he could walk, Michelangelo was drawing human figures at a very young age, Beethoven was composing orchestras. Because of the things you choose to do as a child, you're body and mind will respond in an appropriate way which in many cases will give you an advantage for the rest of your life.

Basically any activity you engage in as a child, whether tracing cracks in a floor or trying to crawl as fast as possible, has a much greater effect on 'specialized training' than almost anything you can do as an adult and will have immediate repercussions on mental and physical abilities in any other tasks you engage in.

I have already addressed the variation part. Much greater variability is observed at the protein level and we are just at the beginning of studying those variations and their implications.

Again, the point was that human's have much less variation than other animals, even taking into account those phenotype, expressed gene and epigenetic differences, since other animals have them to the same degree.

The spread of information is faster and reaches more people thus you will statistically find more cases of people capable of the same thing.

Of course, the point is though that this previously genius level ability is now far more common BECAUSE of the new training available, NOT because of a plethora of mutants. The same goes for any skill, which is why I have stated that virtually anyone can become good, an expert, or even great (depending on whether your definition of great is relative to other people or to an objective standard) at virtually anything.

He may not. We are not born with knowledge or skills - a person has to acquire it (exposure is necessary). To some it just comes much easier to gain it (all things being equal) - that is all I am saying.

I don't disagree with you there, all I am saying is that the amount of difference commonly attributed to genetic variation is way over emphasized, and the amount of difference which comes from our choices and actions (especially at a young age) is way underestimated. In most cases, virtually all difference in performance between individuals comes from non-genetic origins, and only when a peak performance envelope is reached to genetic differences start to play a significant role.

Why is it so troubling to think that we are not equal in this way? Because personally it does not bother me the slightest. I think that everyone should make choices that are the best in their particular context. I am better at some things than others and thus I choose to invest my time accordingly.

I don't find this troubling at all, I simply go where the evidence suggests. Human variation is extremely limited. Very few genes determine the development of the brain. Our choices have profound consequences on both the course and quality of our physiological and mental development and growth. All the great geniuses of history lived lives filled with hard work from a very young age and throughout the whole of their life. The average human brain exceeds in capacity the most powerful supercomputer today by 3 orders of magnitude. A person of average IQ who spends their life in study and continually refining their skills will far exceed the performance ability of a person with a genius level IQ who does nothing but talk about his IQ score.

The predominant narrative in science today is one of biological determinism and this philosophical interpretation has come to dominate our own landscape in regards to human potentials, which has profound consequences. People who believe that intelligence is a fixed quantity avoid intellectual challenges, because they merely reveal to them their faults and limits. They despise ever being wrong because it puts a permanent ceiling on their potential for life. People who believe intelligence is not fixed thrive on intellectual challenges because of the advantages they feel it gives them. People come to attribute success not to productivity and hard work but to a genetic luck of the draw.

The excessive credit given to genetic advantages is basically used as a cop out by most people as an excuse for not trying to do anything significant in their lives, like looking at a body builder and saying 'lucky you, born with all those big muscles' insulting the years of dedicated hard work they put into it. While they should never harbor the notion that they ought to do something significant in order to justify their existence, which most do owing to the altruistic ethic and secular remnant of original sin, and one major reason I think that this narrative is readily adopted, they should never the less not attribute their lack of doing anything significantly productive or innovative to some mystical genetic bad luck and instead to the fact that their life is their own to live and they don't need to accomplish anything in order to justify it. It's an incredibly psychologically crippling attitude to adopt, it scares people away from intellectual challenges, associates genius with a mystical muse like inspirational quality (which mystics readily promulgate) and has probably robbed humanity of a great variety of fantastic innovations and geniuses. More than that, it's wrong. Genetics play a significant role only at the extreme end of the performance envelope.

True that is why you should look much younger. Get yourself a kid or two :lol: and do some experimenting.

hahaha, working on that!

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hahaha, working on that!

I don't have time to respond to the rest of your post but I will respond to that.

There was a time when my views were quiet similar to yours. I still think that environment is a big component the significance of which is often too underplayed. However, I have also learned from my own personal experience as a parent that you can't make a child into everything you think ideal man should be in may aspects of life just by providing him with the right environment (assume everything which is properly needed to succeed: ideas, rationality, opportunities, right motivational approach). If we were what you think we are - with that kind of capacity given right stimulation - I would have been able to accomplish more than I have (you won't find a lot of people better equipped than me in that capacity) . I have done things the right way with my son since his birth and he is great but he is not a young "Francisco" if you know what I mean. Best I can do (I have learned) is to get him close to his own potential (which includes realizing it).

Edited by ~Sophia~
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I don't have time to respond to the rest of your post but I will respond to that.

There was a time when my views were quiet similar to yours. I still think that environment is a big component the significance of which is often too underplayed. However, I have also learned from my own personal experience as a parent that you can't make a child into everything you think ideal man should be in may aspects of life just by providing him with the right environment (assume everything which is properly needed to succeed: ideas, rationality, opportunities, right motivational approach). If we were what you think we are - with that kind of capacity given right stimulation - I would have been able to accomplish more than I have (you won't find a lot of people better equipped than me in that capacity) . I have done things the right way with my son since his birth and he is great but he is not a young "Francisco" if you know what I mean. Best I can do (I have learned) is to get him close to his own potential (which includes realizing it).

Yes, obviously I don't have the experience directly with raising children or cultivating that kind of environment, but I'm sure that it's not just the environment and the potential but also the desire, and no child no matter how brilliant will be good at something they don't want to do, so I would never push or try to coerce or manipulate in some Machiavellian way a child into a particular course, but would only ever encourage any kind of passionate interest I observe. I want to be clear that despite my assertion that virtually anyone can become an expert or great at virtually anything, that does not in any way shape or form mean they ought to or have some moral obligation to. Further, I myself have no desire to become great at a myriad of things I am interested in, I can get to work just fine without being an 'expert' race care level vehicle operator. I'm content with being able to weld metal well, I don't need to be great at it to further my goals, and I would rather spend that time and effort cultivating other skills I find useful.

You seem to be attributing your lack of success though, in other situations, to the lack of a pre-existing genetic advantage. I certainly don't know the specifics of your situation, but in my own life I've accomplished a great deal of things, taught myself many new skills, and in many of them had a great amount of difficulty getting through particular hurdles or finally conceptually grasping some difficult aspect, in many of those cases I thought that this is just not something I am able to do. But after this happened in a few areas and I pushed through it anyway, I realized that this is just a common speed bump in learning new skills, a cusp, so to speak. I think at these cusps, when progress slows dramatically and effort increases dramatically, is when many people stop. In some cases, if you didn't engage in the most worthwhile activity when you are young (like learning other languages) it makes it much more difficult to do it later on. Likewise with physically or mentally demanding habits.

Further, one has to deal with one's own psychological motivation, there are many things I want to do, and it's really easy to say that or think of it, but actually doing the work required to achieve things is a far different scenario. Keep in mind many of the great artists and geniuses spent virtually every waking moment studying or refining their skill. This to me verges on interfering with a eudaemonic quality of life. If you aren't prepared to do that it's unlikely you'll become one of the greats at something.

Beyond that, the way you practice and study can make a significant difference and actually prevent you from progressing in certain areas if you pursue the wrong course. Scientific American's "The Expert Mind" is excellent background on the role of the correct type of practice or study - http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=the-expert-mind. If a functional premise you hold is wrong it can prevent further advance (like Einstein's insistence that Quantum Mechanics was wrong) If you are memorizing something, or learning new information, there are optimal ways to do that and poor ways to do that. So again, I don't know the specifics of your situation, but it's hard for me to think of specific circumstances where you can be so sure that it is a genetic limitation you hit, and not a psychological or behavioral one.

I find Francisco the least realistic of the Atlas Shrugged characters, being perfect at everything with no effort. From my own experience of numerous setbacks and missteps in learning new things to the clear historical record of all the greatest geniuses, nobody was perfect from the start, Michelangelo experimented with different painting techniques and was tutored by the greatest artists in Florence. Tiger Woods has reworked his entire swing, often at great difficulty, something like 3 or four times. Pick any genius in history and none were as superlatively efficacious as Francisco! So don't feel bad =P

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Yes, obviously I don't have the experience directly with raising children or cultivating that kind of environment, but I'm sure that it's not just the environment and the potential but also the desire,

Sure and every committed to the job parent at some point or another will ask themselves: What is the source of this desire? If it has nothing (or little) to do with predispositions for that particular task then it can be nurtured.

Understanding the benefits of something even if the goal is fairly distant, I find, is sometimes enough. But it does not solve the issue completely. Another aspect is perseverance despite obstacles. Here I also have been creative with different approaches.

Biological factors (physiology) also have an effect on temperament which is like a brush with which everything is painted. So it is not only the predisposition toward grasping certain skills.

I would never push or try to coerce or manipulate in some Machiavellian way a child into a particular course,

That is not what I am doing either. But, unlike my seven year old son, I already know the benefits of wielding certain skills in life. If he can learn anything (because he is a blank slate, young, and undamaged by bad habits for example) - then I should be able, in a healthy way, nourish development of those.

Don't get me wrong he sure is better off than most but not the the degree you are suggesting.

but would only ever encourage any kind of passionate interest I observe.

Of course.

I don't have a specific path set up for him.

I want to be clear that despite my assertion that virtually anyone can become an expert or great at virtually anything, that does not in any way shape or form mean they ought to or have some moral obligation to.

I did not think that that was your position.

I am just disputing that that is, in fact, the case. I think many people can be experts at great many things but not virtually anything. I think the evidence you provide is not enough to reach your conclusion. It is an arbitrary assertion at this point. The best I can give you is: Maybe but I have not seen it and I have noticed things which seem to contradict your view.

You seem to be attributing your lack of success though, in other situations, to the lack of a pre-existing genetic advantage.

Perhaps you are referring here to my music story. I am glad that my parents did not put me through hours of frustration which would have been an uphill battle toward a goal with little pay off in comparison to effort (I would have probably given my best). I am glad that I was allowed a much more economical use of my time and effort. It is a fact that the same goal would have been drastically easier to achieve for another kid (I know - my childhood friend, living just upstairs from me, played violin - and I would spend hours, daily listening to her playing).

I also like you think that I can learn great many things and thinking that I can't do virtually everything did not stop me from attempting, and succeeding at things outside of my comfort zone.

In some cases, if you didn't engage in the most worthwhile activity when you are young (like learning other languages) it makes it much more difficult to do it later on. Likewise with physically or mentally demanding habits.

Going back to my child's example. He is young. He does not have those limitations yet. He has only just recently entered the logical stage, for example.

I find Francisco the least realistic of the Atlas Shrugged characters, being perfect at everything with no effort.

I agree. Maybe that was not the best example for me to use. I meant it in terms of being able to achieve anything he wanted. Little effort is not a requirement I would place on anyone.

Edited by ~Sophia~
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I've already weighed in on this topic sometime back in a different thread.

I did have one question for Matus though. Based on your position, do you think it is possible that anyone has the potential to be a great or world class opera singer? Or is it possible that some people, even many people, just don't have the voice, physiologically speaking?

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Right, the point is then that the extensive phenotype variation is not relevant when considering the limited genetic variation of the human species, because all species exhibit similar extensions in phenotype variation but only humans (in the context of this discussion) apparently have such a limited genetic variation.

I don't understand your point here. What is relevant for humans (especially when it comes to issues involving our brain) can not be assessed by looking at genetic variation rates observed in animals. But maybe you mean something different so please expand.

However, how would we distinguish between these two scenarios?

I don't think that your example is useful at all. Those who make it to the Olympics are the selected few who were the best among those who did go through the same training.

amounting to about 1% among each other, are probably primarily from their genetic variations
.

That you also don't know conclusively. Sometimes those seconds are a momentary luck if you will - ability to better control your emotions - something which is hard to train for - especially if it is your first Olympics (stimulating such pressure is hard). There are many factors here.

These are only the top 1% of humans in the first place who also happened to have trained this long and this hard.

There are more people who train for this long and this hard and don't get to go.

In other words, if we take a sample of 1,000 adults, put them through identical rigorous training, diet, etc, and assume they all have the same passion and dedication to the goal, would the best person be 1% better than the worst? 10% better? 100% better?

I do not have that kind of data. I have no idea. But yes we would see much greater differences.

It seems your possible explanation assumes that the primary reason for quitting is because you train as hard, but aren't as good.

But there are many who don't quit. They just don't make the cut over and over until they get to be too old.

So, your average person after one month of training can run the same distance as an Olympic athlete at half the speed, and 5% of them can run the same distance in about 66% of the speed. With the same training and diet, they differ from each other by about 20%. I think it's pretty reasonable to assume that with more training (since this is only 1 month) that difference will get perpetually smaller. Until after about a decade you hit your peak potential performance, at the Olympic athlete level, where they differ from each other at about 1%.

First some people don't even think about joining the army because they can't make it physically. So this is not a random sampling here.

Second you can't assume the pattern of growth or speed of growth based on previous increase. You have to know the equation...the relationship of variables. The relationship may appear linear at first but be in fact exponential and level off fast with no further increases. You just can't make that kind of assumptions.

In terms of physical improvements I noticed myself that the biggest improvements you make is at the beginning.

I disagree on this, that the skill variability is not related to any specialized training. At this young age, the majority of your differences specifically come from habits and skills (from choices) you've made throughout your life and the more varied and active you are in any particular area and the younger the age the more profound the difference will have on you, because in fact your are physiologically developing at the same time, and your habits and choices can actually alter your body.

At what age? I have been observing my son since day one.

All of your other examples support the considerable significance of nurture which I am not disputing.

Of course, the point is though that this previously genius level ability is now far more common BECAUSE of the new training available, NOT because of a plethora of mutants.

Again how do you know that that is not a factor? That more people who CAN get there are exposed to that information so more of them DO? The larger the sampling population the better the chance at finding significantly better ability.

all I am saying is that the amount of difference commonly attributed to genetic variation is way over emphasized,

But I agree with this... that is not all you are saying. You are saying that anyone can become an expert at anything. Huge difference.

My position is far from biological determinism so that is a straw man.

like looking at a body builder and saying 'lucky you, born with all those big muscles' insulting the years of dedicated hard work they put into it

My brother in law is a body builder and most people do not have the genetic predisposition to be as big as he is naturally (without any "help"). They can reach their own potential.

they should never the less not attribute their lack of doing anything significantly productive or innovative to some mystical genetic bad luck and instead to the fact that their life is their own to live

But what you argue against here does not follow from my position.

I think that you allow conclusions from examples in which too many variables are not controlled and thus can't be used as conclusive evidence.

Edited by ~Sophia~
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Human variation is extremely limited. Very few genes determine the development of the brain.

There are only 4 DNA bases but yet this variety is enough to create the difference between a plant and a human. 12 genes is more variety than 4. But even if it was a single gene - even a single gene can have so many variations that can affect its functionality... "12 just doesnt seem enough" is not a solid argument at all.

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To give an example: mutation of a single gene makes the difference between normal skin, and skin that easily detaches from the body (creating blisters and wounds). The gene is responsible for the production of a protein that binds different layers of the skin together. Epidermolysis bullosa. There are several different "glue" proteins for different layers, and so the disease can change from mild to severe according to which gene is mutated. 1 gene - big difference.

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I have no way of confirming any of the statements that a slight genetic advantage is at the core of being great at a particular skill. All I know is my own development as an artist and the constant attention to my improvement. It has been a lifelong pursuit of gut wrenching work at times, almost an angry fight with myself to get some of what I wanted to achieve. Repetition -- collapse, repetition -- collapse. I always set high standards, always above the level of what I had done before, but not so high that I knew that the fight would get me and choke my desire to continue. Steps to demolish the barriers that seem to appear in the middle of a process, the breaking down of that wall that stands there suddenly and the continuation at a slightly higher level after the collapse of the obstacle, the collapse caused by my tenaciousness.

I think this driving pursuit of my goal is a chosen strength I have within my core, to push more than a lot of the people who want this ability but are not willing to give up other things in order to follow this one goal at the exclusion of other things that might be fun as well. This single minded life is not what most people would want -- yet they are envious of this achievement and claim innate ability as an excuse for their own lacking in this field.

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There are only 4 DNA bases but yet this variety is enough to create the difference between a plant and a human. 12 genes is more variety than 4. But even if it was a single gene - even a single gene can have so many variations that can affect its functionality... "12 just doesnt seem enough" is not a solid argument at all.

Nor is, by your own standard "12 does seem like enough"

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In the one case, the number of combinations of four bases in a sequence can be staggeringly huge (it would only take about 135 of them to have as many possible combinations as there are atoms in the universe), much like the number of possible sequences of letters you could type in your reply to this post.

When someone says there are twelve genes that affect something--well typically a gene drives the creation of a specific protein and there usually isn't a whole lot of variation in that protein before it becomes useless or even harmful. Maybe as much as four values (on average) for each of those genes that won't result in a severely crippled (or dead before birth) human. That would work out to about 16 million combinations. I suspect however that in many cases four possible viable values for a gene is generous.

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I have no way of confirming any of the statements that a slight genetic advantage is at the core of being great at a particular skill. All I know is my own development as an artist and the constant attention to my improvement. It has been a lifelong pursuit of gut wrenching work at times, almost an angry fight with myself to get some of what I wanted to achieve. Repetition -- collapse, repetition -- collapse. I always set high standards, always above the level of what I had done before, but not so high that I knew that the fight would get me and choke my desire to continue. Steps to demolish the barriers that seem to appear in the middle of a process, the breaking down of that wall that stands there suddenly and the continuation at a slightly higher level after the collapse of the obstacle, the collapse caused by my tenaciousness.

I think this driving pursuit of my goal is a chosen strength I have within my core, to push more than a lot of the people who want this ability but are not willing to give up other things in order to follow this one goal at the exclusion of other things that might be fun as well. This single minded life is not what most people would want -- yet they are envious of this achievement and claim innate ability as an excuse for their own lacking in this field.

Ok, I'm new here but I had to respond to this topic. Personally, I studied Biology in university, and we are far from a blank slate when we're born (at least not in the way many on this thread have defined the word). Yes, we have potential, and we have free will, but everyone isn't born with equal potential, physical or mental. Now, before I have to go find some articles on this, I want to address this post.

From reading this post, the impression that I get is that you are arguing this point not based on philosophy, nor science, but based on feeling. By that I mean, you have achieved something in your life, and you feel like other people, by subscribing to some form of biological determinism, are devaluing it. I understand that. I agree with that. I know many people who will, upon describing a particularly successful person, use works like "right place at the right time", "fortunate" and so on. Every time they do, I correct them. Yes, he was someone capable of acting, but the main point is he DID act. Many people are capable of acting, few do.

Now, to interject my side of the story. I'm gifted. High IQ, was in a special class in school, blah blah blah. Of course, I have always had other problems (with motivation, etc). I can't tell you the number of times in school where I would absolutely destroy someone in marks, while I did little to no work. No, this wasn't me doing work beforehand, this was me just being able to do something better. For example, in grade 12, we had a Biology independent study project. The teacher gave us 3 chapters to learn, and a month to do it in. One person in my class studied this material every night. He had a great GPA, and was one of the hardest workers I have ever seen. I cracked open the book the day of the test. I skimmed through the material, understood it immediately, and went on to score higher than he did. I'm not saying that as a means of "bragging" because, frankly, I'm not proud of that time in my life (where I lacked motivation). I'm saying it because I want to show you that, had we all been capable of everything, had life been "fair" in the way you seem to think it is, he would have destroyed me.

I'm also very good with math. I've always made intuitive leaps that sometimes confuse even my teachers. I skip steps. I never did homework. I never bothered to learn, I just... knew. The mathmatical concepts were as obvious to me as breathing is to most people. And that has nothing to do with my upbringing, my father didn't teach me math when I was very young (any more than he taught my two brothers, who are not as good as I am). It's the way my brain works, I just make connections. I have lived a life where I was good at most intellectual activities easily. Unfortunately, that comes with other problems. I never learned to work for my understanding, so when something truely difficult comes along, it's harder for me because I don't have the right study habits.

What I'm trying to say is, everyone has different gifts. I never appreciated or worked for mine growing up. Yes, I have to work now (partially because of my goals in life) but that doesn't change the fact that things always came much easier for me.

In the one case, the number of combinations of four bases in a sequence can be staggeringly huge (it would only take about 135 of them to have as many possible combinations as there are atoms in the universe), much like the number of possible sequences of letters you could type in your reply to this post.

When someone says there are twelve genes that affect something--well typically a gene drives the creation of a specific protein and there usually isn't a whole lot of variation in that protein before it becomes useless or even harmful. Maybe as much as four values (on average) for each of those genes that won't result in a severely crippled (or dead before birth) human. That would work out to about 16 million combinations. I suspect however that in many cases four possible viable values for a gene is generous.

Except when you're talking about regulatory genes. In that case, the effect can be any number of different values, because it depends on the amount expressed, not the specific product expressed (there are surprisingly few genes involved in much of development, they are just expressed in different concentrations and combinations).

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From reading this post, the impression that I get is that you are arguing this point not based on philosophy, nor science, but based on feeling. By that I mean, you have achieved something in your life, and you feel like other people, by subscribing to some form of biological determinism, are devaluing it. I understand that. I agree with that. I know many people who will, upon describing a particularly successful person, use works like "right place at the right time", "fortunate" and so on. Every time they do, I correct them. Yes, he was someone capable of acting, but the main point is he DID act. Many people are capable of acting, few do.

Actually I did not really involve feelings at all. I stated only the process and how other people perceive the result :)

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Biological factors (physiology) also have an effect on temperament which is like a brush with which everything is painted. So it is not only the predisposition toward grasping certain skills.

True, but I do not support the idea that biological behavioral influences are absolute, because evidence does not back that up. Someone may be biologically inclined toward a shorter temperament, but active habitualization of a different temperament will eventually become reflexive.

I think many people can be experts at great many things but not virtually anything. I think the evidence you provide is not enough to reach your conclusion. It is an arbitrary assertion at this point. The best I can give you is: Maybe but I have not seen it and I have noticed things which seem to contradict your view.

If that is your criteria than I want to ask, can you admit the opposite? That the evidence is not strong enough to reach the conclusion that a genetic predisposition must be present in order for someone to become great at something?

That is, are we starting from the perspective where it is assumed that hardly anyone can do hardly anything great unless they have a genetic gift favoring that, and I must prove that these limitations are not that pronounced?

Or can we start from the perspective that virtually anyone can do virtually anything great and the limitations must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.

To put it another way, on a concrete personal level, if you set out to learn a new skill, do you assume you can do it unless proven you can not, or do you assume you can not do and not start it unless you prove to yourself that you can do it?

With the evidence I've listed including the limited human genetic variation available and the fact that all great people can have their greatness much more obviously attributed to their hard work and purposeful study than a genetic gift, I think the later explanation is a more reasonable one to start from. Assuming axiomatically the prevalence of biological predeterminism and insisting it must be proved incorrect is arbitrary. We can just as easily start with the axiom that virtually anyone can do virtually anything great, and ask that the existence of specific limitations be proven to apply to a wide variety of the population. Either we are trying to prove you need a genetic gift to be great, or that you don't need a genetic gift to be great. In the former case, we must examine everyone who is great and show that they have this genetic gift. In the latter, all we need do is see one single person who does not have this genetic gift and we have proven that it is not required to be great.

Perhaps you are referring here to my music story. ... It is a fact that the same goal would have been drastically easier to achieve for another kid (I know - my childhood friend, living just upstairs from me, played violin - and I would spend hours, daily listening to her playing).

I wasn't specifically referring to that, but it's a good easy example to work from. And this is a good time for me to be absolutely clear that in no way I am suggesting that there is never any relative difference in the ability for a person to learn something from another person. This is obvious with even the most cursory examination.

What is wrong though is to automatically attribute that completely to genetic variation. In your case, even as a child, you still had years of developmental influence, choices that you and your parents made, which could have influenced your ability to pick up a new musical skill. You may have also had a genetic predisposition to make it more difficult, but how would you isolate the two?

From the very moment we are born every thing we do and that is done to us alters our neural and physiological development, primarily while we are growing, but even into adult years. Genetic differences would be most obvious in two scenarios 1) with absolutely no conditional differences and 2) with identical controlled conditional differences over a long time. The first would best be approximated by newborn infants. The second is virtually impossible to create. Even if a child, starting from infancy, is 1% more likely to grasp and pick up an object, this difference, taking place throughout their developmental years, could easily be compounded into major difference in physical dexterity down the road. At 1% this is below the threshold of perceptibility (which is generally 2%) so no one would think this child had done or behaved in any different way than any other children, but these small differences early on can create tremendous differences later.

I'm perusing Google scholar looking for infant performance tests on dexterity or motor skills but have had no luck so far. The papers I have found present infant scores as an aggregate to be compared against other scores, at a later age, for instance. Though I did come across this gem (emphasis added)

Our results raise the intriguing possibility that infants possess experience-dependent mechanisms that may be powerful enough to support not only word segmentation but also the acquisition of other aspects of language. It remains unclear whether the statistical learning we observed is indicative of a mechanism specific to language acquisition or of a general learning mechanism applicable to a broad range of distributional analyses of environmental input (22). Regardless, the existence of computational abilities that extract structure so rapidly suggests that it is premature to assert a priori how much of the striking knowledge base of human infants is primarily a result of experience-independent mechanisms. In particular, some aspects of early development may turn out to be best characterized as resulting from innately biased statistical learning mechanisms rather than innate knowledge. If this is the case, then the massive amount of experience gathered by infants during the first postnatal year may play a far greater role in development than has previously been recognized.
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I've already weighed in on this topic sometime back in a different thread.

I did have one question for Matus though. Based on your position, do you think it is possible that anyone has the potential to be a great or world class opera singer? Or is it possible that some people, even many people, just don't have the voice, physiologically speaking?

Yes, I remember you saying you could not be a great guitar player because your thought your hands were too small. I wonder then what you would say of a video like this?

Dude rocks out on a giant guitar

As for the opera singing question, first, I did not say that anyone can become great at anything, Stephen Hawking won't be winning any marathon's anytime soon. But I do assert that virtually anyone can become at least an expert, and probably great, at virtually anything.

Beyond that, I do not know enough about vocal chord physiology or opera to answer your question. Assuming I have a limited vocal range, can I be an opera singer yet only have a vocal range that is within one octave? Can your vocal chords be trained to extend into other physical ranges. Googling 'extend your vocal range' turns up many hits, though I am not clear if it is physically possible. Perfect pitch is not necessary, and even if it was, as long as you arent deaf you can learn to distinguish notes. Many foreign languages are tone based.

But yes it is entirely possible that some people might not have the physiological ability to become great at some things.

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In the one case, the number of combinations of four bases in a sequence can be staggeringly huge (it would only take about 135 of them to have as many possible combinations as there are atoms in the universe), much like the number of possible sequences of letters you could type in your reply to this post.

When someone says there are twelve genes that affect something--well typically a gene drives the creation of a specific protein and there usually isn't a whole lot of variation in that protein before it becomes useless or even harmful. Maybe as much as four values (on average) for each of those genes that won't result in a severely crippled (or dead before birth) human. That would work out to about 16 million combinations. I suspect however that in many cases four possible viable values for a gene is generous.

There are hundreds of active genes in the brain if not more. Each one of these genes codes a chain of at least 80 amino acids (more or less). You said 4 mutations can be meaningful - I think more are meaningful. Check out Hemoglobin mutations, there are many of them, and more than 7 which produce meaningful changes in the protein's functionality and stability.

If that is not enough, proteins are not working in isolation. Their functionality can affect complex chains of cell's behavior. Heck, it's enough that one receptor of a neurotransmitter is mutated or an enzyme that degrades a neurotransmitter mutated to change the entire dynamics of synapse operation.

Here is an example of a family of genetic diseases affecting the brain functionality:

What is Adrenoleukodystrophy?

Adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD) is one of a group of genetic disorders called the leukodystrophies that cause damage to the myelin sheath, an insulating membrane that surrounds nerve cells in the brain. People with ALD accumulate high levels of saturated, very long chain fatty acids (VLCFA) in the brain and adrenal cortex because they do not produce the enzyme that breaks down these fatty acids in the normal manner. The loss of myelin and the progressive dysfunction of the adrenal gland are the primary characteristics of ALD. ALD has two subtypes. The most common is the X-linked form (X-ALD), which involves an abnormal gene located on the X-chromosome. Women have two X-chromosomes and are the carriers of the disease, but since men only have one X-chromosome and lack the protective effect of the extra X-chromosome, they are more severely affected. Onset of X-ALD can occur in childhood or in adulthood. The childhood form is the most severe, with onset between ages 4 and 10. The most common symptoms are usually behavioral changes such as abnormal withdrawal or aggression, poor memory, and poor school performance.

(link)

Again - this is a mutation of a single gene that causes "withdrawal or aggression, poor memory, and poor school performance".

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Mensch, I got a good link here for you that you can show your students that should shut them up for good. I'm not posting this to try and make a point in the ongoing debate, this is just a good example of what you can acomplish with hard work and dedication, and while it's not exactly web design it is visual art.

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=870

This guy started a thread at the conceptart forums when he was a newbie, and as you can see he was not very skilled at the beginning. Throughout the thread you can see his progress. Today he's a professional and teaches others.

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Mensch, I got a good link here for you that you can show your students that should shut them up for good. I'm not posting this to try and make a point in the ongoing debate, this is just a good example of what you can acomplish with hard work and dedication, and while it's not exactly web design it is visual art.

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=870

This guy started a thread at the conceptart forums when he was a newbie, and as you can see he was not very skilled at the beginning. Throughout the thread you can see his progress. Today he's a professional and teaches others.

Very impressive!

Notice what someone posted just after this guy had been drawing for 3 weeks (one drawing a day with 2 drawings on weekend days = ~25 drawings)

Hey MindCandyMan, I just wanted to say that I think it's absolutely great what you're doing here. I wish more people were willing to pursue a goal with the kind of courage and positive attitude you obviously have.

I can scarcely believe you've only been doing this since September 15th. And with no formal training! Maybe you don't realize it, since you're posting on this board so full of skilled artists and you haven't been able to compare your work to other beginners, but you've reached a point in two weeks that it takes most people months or even years to reach.

Edited by ~Sophia~
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