Who would think that a single book review could garner so much attention? The blog, originally published in March 2010, continues to garner weekly attention. Both the book and the issue are groundbreaking. The issue is just as important today, so here's the original blog. . . .
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Forget about genes as "unchanging" "blueprints" and talent as a "gift," all tied up in a bow. The review of David Shenk's new book, The Genius in All of Us: Why Everything You've been told About Genetics, Talent, and IQ is Wrong, in today's NYTimes Book Review summarizes much of the important research findings over the past ten years.
Reading over the review a couple times, I hooted with laughter remembering the old saw from music school about how to get to play at Carnagie Hall: practice, practice, practice. That's exactly what Anders Ericsson has learned about development, the notion of deliberate practice.
Shenk sets out to overthrow the conventional ideas surrounding the words, "nature" and "nurture." But he also recognizes that you can't overthrow the conventional ideas and images that have been accumulating for more than 125 years. In fact, as I've argued in numerous places, old dogma dies hard. Once concepts are deeply embedded, a superstructure of assumptions and ideas grows around it. Rejecting a dogma means that many ideas are now questionable, more research could be invalid, and that the reputation and contribution of many scientists might be questioned. As you can guess, old dogma rarely gets challenged.
Still, two significant and distinct lines of psychological research have been built up over the last fifteen years. One body of research shows that intelligence is fundamentally a competence that can be developed. A second line of research shows that supervised coaching, maintained at high levels for extended time periods, along with disciplined learning, can be far-reaching.
I draw two very important conclusions from this research. First, the next time you pick up the Wall Street Journal and read an article by Charles Murray (of the Bell Curve) and his ilk, remember that he's either BSing or clueless. Here's a copy of a letter by Robert Sternberg of Yale and Tufts, which I've posted on my website, challenging Murray's archaic ideas.
What the research also reveals is that we need not be stuck in careers and vocations that go the way of the Dodo bird as a result of technology and innovation. If we are willing to persist in continual growth, we can create new opportunities for ourselves. I've seen clients do that very thing for years and years.
Oh yeah. What Shenk seems to be unfamiliar with is the notion of small wins, the best way to persist and grow in the face of failure. You can find my basic discussion of the process and the research here. Why small changes work. . . . and Motivation and small wins . . . .
Flickr photo: by Vladsun