There is a large body of literature on 'innate talent', which is what seems
to be discussed here. Most accounts of innate talent make use of circular
reasoning: "X designs so well because X has talent. How do I know X has
talent? That’s obvious, X designs so well!"
This common belief in innate talent is curious given how little empirical
evidence supports such an interpretation of exceptional performance. Talent
seems to be rather a putative characteristic with non-trivial consequences.
Here are some quotes:
1. Herbert Simon: "Individual (innate) talents are never so pronounced that
they support expertise without extensive learning and practice"
2. "Contrary to common belief, most child prodigies never attain
exceptional levels of performance as adults. Furthermore, the vast majority
of exceptional adult performers were never child prodigies, but instead
they started instruction early and increased their performance due to a
sustained high level of training. The role of early instruction and maximal
parental support appears to be much more important than innate talent, and
there are many examples of parents of exceptional performers who
successfully designed optimal environments for their children without any
concern about innate talent".
3. "Prodigious performance is rare because extreme talent for a specific
activity in a particular child and the necessary environmental support and
instruction rarely coincide...
In summary, the evidence from systematic laboratory research on prodigies
and savants provides no evidence for giftedness or innate talent but shows
that exceptional abilities are acquired often under optimal environmental
conditions...
The traditional view of talent, which concludes that successful individuals
have special innate abilities and basic capacities, is not consistent with
the reviewed evidence."
4. "To summarize, there may be little or no basis for innate giftedness for
the following reasons:
i) The lack of convincing positive evidence,
ii) The substantial amount of negative evidence,
iii) The finding that practice is predictive of performance,
iv) The observation that ‘talented’ individuals do not reach high levels of
expertise without substantial amounts of training,
v) The evidence that people who are assumed to posses no talent are
capable of very high levels of performance when given sufficient
opportunities for training,
vi) And the apparent absence of differences in the amount of practice time
required by the most and least successful young musicians to make
equivalent amount of progress."
5. "No case has been encountered of anyone reaching the highest levels of
achievement in chess-playing, mathematics, music, or sports without
devoting thousands of hours to serious training."
References:
Simon, HA: 2001, Creativity in the arts and the sciences, The Kenyon
Review, 23(2), 203-220.
Barlow, F: 1952, Mental prodigies: an inquiry into the faculties of
arithmetical, chess and musical prodigies, famous memorizers, precocious
children and the like, with numerous examples of "lightning" calculations
and mental magic, Philosophical Library, New York.
Howe, MJA, Davidson, JW and Sloboda, JA: 1999, Innate traits: reality or
myth?, in SJ Ceci and WM Williams (eds.), The Nature-Nurture Debate, The
Essential Readings, Blackwell, Malden, pp. 258-289.
Heller KA, Mönks FJ, Sternberg R and Subotnik R (eds), International
Handbook of Research and Development of Giftedness and Talent, Pergamon,
Oxford.
Sometime earlier you wrote:
>Dear Elson and others!
>I have the same opinion about "talent". Ether you have talent or not.
>But the talent without hard work will soon be uninteresting. The talent
>is a good start but it is not enough!
>Barbra Streisand once said when it comes to music: "Good technique
>without feelings is always bad, feelings without technique is always
>good". Think about Louis Armstrong's singing, no voice but wonderful
>song.
>
>What I mean is that "talent" always has to be educated in a
>professional manner. That does not mean that the "non talent" is a
>loser!
>I have met students that was very talent but did not use this gift and
>ended up as losers. I have also met student that was not very talent
>but with hard work and enthusiasm ended up being very good designers.
>This is a very interesting subject and of course important.
>Some questions:
>What is a talent!?
>Who are going to judge! Must he/she also be a talent?
>We know that this problems also exist when judging intelligence.
>In-spite of design teachers, talent or not, there are a lot of good
>designers educated in the design schools.
>The bad designers we have to live with. On the other hand what is bad!
>Happy New Year
>Dag
>
>
>28 dec 2004 kl. 02.27 skrev SZETO, Sing Ying Elson:
>
>>Dear all,
>>Can anyone elaborate on "talent" and "intuition" in relation to design
>>education? Can talent and intuition be educated?
>>Cheers,
>>Elson
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: Gunnar Swanson [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
>>Sent: Monday, December 27, 2004 11:45 PM
>>To: [log in to unmask]
>>Subject: talent
>>
>>On Dec 27, 2004, at 6:43 AM, Paul Tosh, M.F.A. wrote:
>>>Graphic designer Paul Rand said " The fundamental
>>>skill of a designer is talent. Talent is a rare commodity. It's all
>>>intuition.
>>>And you can't each intuition."
>>
>>If we assume this to be true, what should we do with that information?
>>Can one determine talent and intuition before charging untalented and
>>unintuitive people tens of thousands of dollars and wasting several
>>years of their lives?
>>
>>If it is, indeed, all intuition, what does that mean for the role of
>>design education?
>>
>>Gunnar
>>----------
>>Gunnar Swanson Design Office
>>536 South Catalina Street
>>Ventura California 93001-3625 USA
>>
>>+1 805 667-2200
>>[log in to unmask]
>>
>>http://www.gunnarswanson.com
>
>--Ricardo
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