The Expert Mind Tom Smith

Quite interesting article here on the “expert mind” and how it is built by “effortful study,” and not so much by innate talent or genius.  The psychologists prefer to study chess masters in trying to figure out how a person becomes an expert at some skill or art.  The article leans hard in the direction that practice, not inborne talent, is the secret of success, even in the cases of such famous prodigies as Mozart and Gauss.  I don’t buy it entirely.  It may take tons of work to make even a young Mozart, but I suspect you must start with considerable talent as well.

The article also addresses athletic development, especially among soccer players.  Apparently there is evidence that soccer prowess is all about practice as well.  I have no doubt that practice is essential, but there is also no way that a 5’8″ guy is ever going to make the NBA, no matter how hard he works.  Similarly, that some Hungarian mathematician could (cruelly, it seems to me) turn his kids into chess prodigies, does not prove that the apparently extraordinarily dumb persons who man certain service establishments near my home could do the same thing.   Mathematicians, they ain’t.   It is interesting, however, that kids are far better now at chess than ever before, a phenomenon attributed to the availability of computer based chess — you can play against a master now any time you like.

The article also made me think about legal expertise, and even whether there is such a thing in the same way there is chess, or scientific expertise.  Chess is good for psychologists because you can rank players pretty objectively by strength.  It would be hard to do the same thing with lawyers.

Another rather sad fact mentioned comes from studying tracking expertise among hunter-gatherers.  Tracking is an exquisitely refined skill.  It very definitely is something that involves expertise.  Apparently expert hunters get better and better at tracking (if they practice) until they are 30 or so, then they slowly decline after that.  Perhaps this is the hunter gatherer equivalent of tenure.