There's a "100 hour rule" now

[anon73430903]

How long do I have to practice for until I am good enough to make a horrible mess that an expert will struggle to fix?

[redesigned]

@kupfernigk

But the 10 000 hour rule is based on real research

@albill

which was debunked but which Malcolm Gladwell handwaved for his populist tripe.

Yes, yes it was, many many times…

New Study Destroys Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 Hour Rule

National Geographic

they concluded that practice accounted for only 30 percent of success in music and 34 percent in chess.

They also found wide variability in the hours of practice. Chess grand masters had put in from 832 to 24,284 hours of work, although the average was around 10,530 hours. Musicians’ efforts ranged from 10,000 to 30,000 hours.

The variability in hours of practice washes away any meaning from the 10,000-hour rule, Hambrick suggests.

In his response, Ericsson says that this kind of critique inappropriately mixes data about less-skilled folks into the analysis.

http://www.fastcodesign.com/3027564/asides/scientists-debunk-the-myth-that-10000-hours-of-practice-makes-you-an-expert

The 10,000 Hour Rule Is Not Real

[kupfernigk]

@redesigned

i didn’t realize that this message board was a peer reviewed journal,

This is from the conclusion of paper in a peer reviewed journal (the paper I’m currently reading, for some voluntary work I’m doing):
“In recent years, an increased interest of Enterococcus spp. has been noted and the presence of bacteria of this genera has been confirmed within many infectious endogenous pathogenic bacteria isolates; E. faecalis is the dominant species (57%) in clinical cases and was also detected in the analyzed necrosol samples.”

This is a sample of what you wrote:
“absolute rubbish psudo science self help feel good garbage.”

Between those there is a level of sensible discourse. Perhaps I don’t always reach it but I try. You just seem to grab the scattergun and blast away.

Until I read a reply above I didn’t even know who Malcolm Gladwell was; apparently he’s a journalist, and I don’t get my science from journalists. My feeling that the figure of 10 000 hours or 5 years is about right for someone to reach their mastery of a subject, after which further progress is slow, is taken from 40 years of experience as a teacher, working scientist, engineer and manager of scientists and engineers. Obviously it isn’t exact, and peak achievement varies greatly with aptitude. I never said it didn’t, or most of the other things you attribute to me. In fact, your response seems to be to keep churning out more strawmen.

I can only think that you believe that I am saying that 10 000 hours of practice will make everybody equally good at something, which is not something I’m aware of ever having suggested. Anybody who has made their way through basic experimental psychology knows roughly the dimensions of the more-or-less normal distribution curves for IQ and a whole lot of other things, and whatever the causes of population variation of everything from IQ to hearing sensitivity, they are real. Someone with an IQ of 80 is never going to learn differentiation (though one of my supervisors once spent half an hour trying to get B F Skinner to admit it.)
However, when you look at the “normal” academic route, for instance, it is pretty clear that the time from leaving school to PhD is somewhere starting at around 6 years and going up to perhaps 10. It is not one term and up. Traditional apprenticeships such as my great-grandfather went through lasted around 5 years, and then after another 5 years one became a fully fledged craftsman.
There are certainly people who we describe as having natural aptitude, but even Mozart, who was extremely quick at learning to read and interpret music, did not hit the ground running.
Teaching is also important in skill acquisition; providing feedback and ensuring the pupil never gets an easy ride can accelerate learning.
I’m afraid all your handwaving about don’t you believe in this or that, natural aptitudes and the like, just seems to me to be that - handwaving.

[enso]

@kupfernigk

Until I read a reply above I didn’t even know who Malcolm Gladwell was; apparently he’s a journalist

He’s the author of pop psych books much more than a journalist.

http://gladwell.com/outliers/the-10000-hour-rule/

[SamSam]

@awjt

and if they did get within grappling range would quickly adjust to be in dominant position.

Ah, right, because they’re magic.

[SamSam]

@redesigned

research has shown that parts of the brain actually grow during the skill acquisition process and we now know that neurons are continually being created in people who are actively learning.

also, you are confusing synaptic connections with neurons. CNS was one of my majors.

Then you should know that adult neurogenesis in the hippocampus seems very possibly to be linked to learning. See 1 and 2, for example.

(In general, though, new synaptic connections are much more clearly associated with learning, yes.)

[anon50609448]

@redesigned

there are no rules that anyone can master any skill, they can’t. only a small percentage of the population is ever able to master most skills regardless of time spent.

Well, to be more precise, I would say there is pretty much a rule that not everyone can master a skill. There is no objective or quantifiable definition of mastery, so mastery usually means being way out ahead of the pack. A master is 3, 4 or 5σ up from the mean. If everyone practiced chess for 10k hours then the mean would increase, the variance would decrease, but we’d still all get crushed by Big Magnus. The 10k hour rule doesn’t even make any sense.

[anon34812172]

Crap, I forgot to include Kung Fu and Capoeira. They’ll drunken master dance you to death! Kapowww!

[redesigned]

If you understand distributions you surely must realize how ridiculous any X number of hours rule is, it doesn’t make any sense any way you look at it. In any group with variation any such rule would be meaningless.

I’m surprised you are suckered in by this pseudo-science, when it has been scientifically debunked and even a cursory investigation into the subject would reveal as much. Don’t take my word for it since you obviously take issue with my communication. Do your own 5min investigation, you’ll see that the scientific consensus is that this “rule” isn’t a rule, and you’ll see scientists pointing out the same factors I’ve previously outlined.

@kupfernigk

I’m afraid all your handwaving about don’t you believe in this or that, natural aptitudes and the like, just seems to me to be that - handwaving.

In the following comment, I link to 4 articles quoting scientific studies which are linked to in each article, each one debunking the 10000hr rule. One of the studies analyzes over 80 different studies into the subject, and dismisses the 10000hr rule as outright “meaningless”. Even the originator of the 10000hr rule says it only applies to those with natural aptitude in a given skill, in their own words the original author disagrees with your assertion and original disagreement to me.

@kupfernigk

I don’t get my science from journalists. My feeling that the figure of 10 000 hours or 5 years is about right for someone to reach their mastery of a subject

You slap down links to articles by journalists despite them quoting scientific studies. Your rebuttal is anecdotal account of your “feelings” and personal expeience coupled and your acknowledgment that you don’t even know who coined the “rule” despite your previous insistence that there was actual science behind it which there really isn’t. If you want links to actual scientific journals, there is near consensus that these rules are junk science for the exact same reasons I’ve outlined.

http://pss.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/06/30/0956797614535810.abstract

[quote]More than 20 years ago, researchers proposed that individual differences in performance in such domains as music, sports, and games largely reflect individual differences in amount of deliberate practice, which was defined as engagement in structured activities created specifically to improve performance in a domain. This view is a frequent topic of popular-science writing—but is it supported by empirical evidence? To answer this question, we conducted a meta-analysis covering all major domains in which deliberate practice has been investigated. We found that deliberate practice explained 26% of the variance in performance for games, 21% for music, 18% for sports, 4% for education, and less than 1% for professions. We conclude that deliberate practice is important, but not as important as has been argued.
[/quote]

The full study can be found for free here:

Macnamara-et-al.-2014.pdf

The conclusion is exactly my original assertion you disagreed with:

their claim that individual differences in performance are largely accounted for by individual differences in amount of deliberate practice is not supported by the available empirical evidence. An important goal for future research on expert performance is to draw on existing theories of individual differences (e.g., Ackerman, 1987; Gagné, 2009; Schmidt, 2014; Simonton, 2014) to identify basic abilities and other individual difference factors that explain variance in performance and to estimate their importance as predictor variables relative to deliberate practice

[redesigned]

@anon50609448

The 10k hour rule doesn’t even make any sense.

i agree.

[anon34812172]

How many hours did it take you to put this post together? It demonstrates mastery.

[renke]

mybe it would make sense if you learned more about it? say, 100 hours?

[redesigned]

@awjt & @renke you both know that i appreciate you!

[anon61221983]

So, I’ve been alive for around 16million hours or some such nonsense… When do I feel like I’ve mastered my own mindy-ness?

[renke]

you were successful: I’m not aware of anyone better prepared to master your mindy-ness.

@beschizza

Now there is also a 100-hour rule, which is what it takes “to become much more competent than an absolute beginner.”

compared to (probably) everyone else you ARE much more competent in this specific area

[anon34812172]

Good. Sometimes it’s fun to coax the cat to come over and then rough it up and rub its fur the wrong way, isn’t it?

[anon61221983]

@renke

you were successful: I’m not aware of anyone better prepared to master your mindy-ness.

We’re doomed! DOOOOOOMMMEEDDD!!!

I’m going to sing the doom song now…

[Maneki.Nekko]

From 2006 to 2008 I worked at a place where the time clock showed what were called “decimal minutes.” If you punched in at 8:30 am and out at 4:20 pm, your card read “IN 08.50 OUT 16.33.”

[anon8420928]

@Maneki.Nekko

If you punched in at 8:30 am and out at 4:20 pm, your card read “IN 08.50 OUT 16.33.”

~Obligatory joke about punching out at 4:20.~

[anon34812172]

I think it was intentional. You know what? When someone mentions 4:20, it’s always intentional.