[Malidir]

>The belief that some people have an innate skill that they are born with is deeply unhelpful. Whilst some people (mostly spectrum) do seem have an innate talent, I would argue that it is more an inbuilt ability to hyper focus on a topic, whether that topic be mathematics, Star Trek, dinosaurs or legacy console games from the 1980’s.

Nonsense!

The brain you are born with materially dictates the ceiling of your talent. A person with average ability can with dedication and focus over many years become reasonably good, but a genius can do the same in 1 year and at a young age.

We have an education system which gives an A Grade if you pass the course, but 1 person may put on 5 hours a week and the other works day and night.

[PittleyDunkin]

What makes you think that "genius" is nature and not nurture? I'd love to see the evidence for this; i'm deeply skeptical.

Edit: I don't mean to argue that there aren't genetics involved in determining aptitude on certain tasks, of course, but the assumption that genius is born and never made feels like a very shallow understanding of the capacity of man.

[Malidir]

> I'd love to see the evidence for this; i'm deeply skeptical.

Cool, come and have a coffee with me :) I have older and younger siblings and was the one randomly blessed.

Whereas most recognised talents are associated with hard work and so there is then this visible link, I am a good example as I did the bare minimum throughout education (and beyond...).

The way my brain processes and selectively discards/stores the information it receives is very different to majority of the population. I have no control over it.

I take zero credit for any of my achievments - I regularly meet intelligent people near to retirement who have been to a tier 1 university, may have PHDs, worked 60 hours a week since they were born, been on course and what not and cannot reach the levels I can.

My nurturing was no different to siblings/peers (and was terrible!)

Note: I have my weaknesses too, but as a whole, I am exceptional. Not through effort!! Completely random - neither of my parents are intelligent and nothing up the ancestary tree as far as I know.

[PittleyDunkin]

I am also exceptional in many ways, (some of them negative), and some of this is clearly inherited and likely genetic. I share too many innate strengths with my father and, to a lesser extent, my siblings to disagree with this. But I just don't know how you could preclude developmental factors like "when you started reading as a child", "what sort of puzzles and games you played as a child", "lack of trauma as a child", etc.