Quote Originally Posted by Atmosfear View Post
Do you think these genes are that rare?
I never said they were that rare. The point is that you have to have the genetic makeup to be good at athletics before practicing at athletics means anything.

These players were sorted and selected from very young age, before any sort of talent was able to manifest. Nobody is born making free throws, but when you're bigger than the other kids and get the play more, you get more practice.
Being bigger than the other kids is your genetic predisposition. If you're smaller but someone notices that you're fast, that's a genetic predisposition. Clearly, training can make you faster and bigger (not so much height, but muscle mass), but if you start out being 5'4 and very slow, you're just not ever going to do as well as someone who is 6'1 and lightning fast from the get-go. If training brings out exceptional speeds, it doesn't mean it was just the training. It means that the training allowed your natural traits to come out. My whole point is that without the genes, the practice is meaningless. It doesn't mean that anyone who has the genes can succeed without practice. It just means that one is required for the other to have any meaning.

Quote Originally Posted by Atmosfear
Before you know it, you're invited to play with the best of the best and none of it ever had to do with some God-given ability to judge your wrist-release.
Of course it did. If you didn't have the genes, no amount of training would have allowed you to get that proficient. Period. Strip all the opportunity and luck out of it, and it just comes down to work and genes, right? Well, if you were never genetically predisposed to building certain skills, no amount of building will ever get you to the level of someone with those predispositions. Not everyone on earth can be a good basketball player. Even if every single human being worked 10,000 hours for it, there would still be bad players, mediocre players, and exceptional players. That's where the genes show themselves. If everything else is equal, disparity still exists. Genes are responsible for that.

Quote Originally Posted by Atmosfear
10,000 hours of practice. That's the magic number. If you're good enough to get started on the road to 10,000 hours of practice, your God-given "talents" don't matter.
Being "good enough to get started on the road" IS your natural ability.

If genetics were so important, why isn't everyone on Forbes' Wealthiest list also in MENSA?
They don't have to be in MENSA. They just have to be smart enough to do the work that lets them become successful. The people on Forbes' Wealthiest are not idiots. And any idiots who are on lists like that are products of luck. Winning the lottery and becoming a millionaire doesn't make you intelligent, but you do have to be intelligent to get a business into a position where it can make millions. Game theory and probability are separate issues.

If genetics weren't so important, why isn't everyone in the world on Forbes' Wealthiest list?