Genetic Factors

How many hours of someone’s life are necessary to perfect a skill? 300? 5000? Perhaps try 10,000 hours. In this chapter from Outliers, “The 10,000-Hour Rule”, Malcolm Gladwell argues that talent isn’t innate, but takes 10,000 hours to perfect a skill based on opportunity, talent, and practice. Throughout the chapter “The 10,000-Hour Rule”, Malcolm Gladwell effectively relies on logos--evidence from well-known figures and charts that show age similarities--to support his theory that it takes a particular window of time to offer someone the opportunity to practice for 10,000 hours to succeed at a skill. However, Gladwell ineffectively relies on repetition of evidence and failure to

To work until reaching the level of mastery of anything is a massive achievement in a person’s life. What if someone told that person that if they haven’t had reached the level of mastery if they haven’t practiced a certain amount of hours. How would that make them feel? Enraged. Depressed. Speechless. Talentless. In the Chapter “The 10,000-Hour Rule” by Malcolm Gladwell, he argues that the amount of practice required for the mastery of anything is 10,000 hours. He uses examples of famous people or groups of people that the audience might know to try and dispel the myth that to be able to master something, it takes more than innate talent. Malcolm Gladwell's use of logos and imagery fail to prove his point to the author due to the statistics he uses, and the sentences he uses to prove his point that the amount of hours required for mastery is 10,000 hours.

This rule is said to be the foundation and “magic number” for greatness and success. In order for one to truly be successful and reach a strong basis for having a good understanding in one’s career, profession, etc., they must have at least spent 10,000 hours practicing/doing/learning about whatever they want to be successful in. Gladwell provides many examples to support his concept. He uses examples of violinists and pianists, singers and musicians like the Beatles, and great programmers like Bill Joy, Bill Gates, and Steven Jobs, to help support his concept of the 10,000- hour rule. What Gladwell found in common with all of his examples, was that all of the violinists, pianists, musicians, and programmers, were successful because they put at least 10,000 hours into their work. Additionally, Gladwell found out that not only did successful people put 10,000 hours towards their particular area of interest, they were able to further in success because of great opportunities and a series of fortunate events like birth year, up-bringing, networking, and sometimes sheer luck, etc. that all helped to allow them to reach their 10,000 hours. Ultimately, Gladwell suggests that in order to succeed, one must put a lot of time and effort into whatever they want to be successful

There are a lot of aspects that should be taken into account when determining what makes an athlete successful. One could argue that natural ability is one of the determining factors which leads to success. For example, if an athlete has dreams of playing in the NBA then height makes a difference. There aren’t many successful players in the league under six feet tall. One could argue that level of competition plays a role in the development of an athlete. This could include the skill level of the opponent or outside factors such as playing conditions or game circumstances. These types of arguments play a role in athlete success, but will not be used in this paper because they are factors that are out of the athlete’s control. This paper

In Outliers, Gladwell discusses a theory named “The 10,000-Hour Rule” that proposes the 10,000 hours is the specific amount it time it takes for someone to become a master at a skill. The quote “Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing that makes you good” (Gladwell, p.42) exemplifies how Karp came to becoming a computer genius. David Karp had access to extended advantages not offered to other high school students by being homeschooled at a young age. Encouraged by his mother, Karp dropped out of school at age 14 to be homeschooled with an emphasis on computers, coding and Japanese (Cooper). The addition time allowed Karp to

In Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers, he says the pillars of success are hard work, location, and opportunity. Gladwell defines hard work as his 10,000 hour rule. I think his 10,000 hour rule has flaws. I found others that also argue about the 10,000 hour rule. Although Malcolm Gladwell’s formula offers many examples of successful people who put in 10,000 hours of hard work, he eliminates child prodigies or other people who are successful and quick to learn in under 10,000 hours.

Some people may feel that the 10,000 hour rule is simply a hoax. This type of thought process could come from a number of things, such as the belief that a person believes they have mastered a certain skill before reaching 10,000 hours of practice. These people either are not true masters of their skill, or have not calculated the time of practice correctly. Based on scientific research, every professional or master of a skill has done their time of

Professional basketball is a game of giants. Players ranging all the way up to 7 feet and higher battle on hardwood to place a ball through the hoop. In the United States, the average height for males comes in at around 5 foot 10 inches. Existing in a seemingly alternate universe, basketball players even 6 foot or 6 foot one are considered short. Floating inside of this universe of massive men, Isaiah Thomas challenges the norm. Could a 5 foot 8 player possibly survive, let alone thrive inside of the universe of professional basketball? Isaiah Thomas resoundingly answers this question in the affirmative. Coming in at 5 foot 8, 185 pounds, Thomas’ miniscule height, even for an average man, leaves him gazing up at the opposition. Drafted with

The name of this article is “What it takes to be Great” and the name of the author is Geoff Colvin. This article was published October 30 2006. The questions that the researchers wanted to answer where if people are born athletic so the researchers studied athletic people like Michael Jordan and Jerry Rice. People always thought that people are born athletic and that was Colvin’s argument that people are not born athletic. You have to work hard every day so you can become great at something. Deliberate practice involves, discipline, dedication, a strong mind, and determination. The example that Colvin uses is how Michael Jordan got cut from a basketball team but the next year he came back and he was better because he started practicing every

“ Is the ten-thousand-hour rule a general rule of success? If we scratch below the surface of every great achiever… some sort of special opportunity for practice?”Pg.47

As Allen Iverson once infamously said, “We talkin’ ‘bout practice.” Not, however, with the insignificant connotation attributed to practice in Iverson’s notorious press conference. Some people dream of how perfect their lives would be if only they were blessed with the scarce and extraordinary skills possessed by the world’s most renowned athletes. In reality, the world is filled with exceptionally talented men and women who never sniff the likes of the Olympics or a professional league. It is only a select few people who choose to harvest their dreams in the fields of hard work and dedication. It is only a select few people who choose to forge their gifts in the fires of determination and sacrifice. (Parallelism).

Your personal DNA is a factor in your phenotype, but it is not the only factor. Environmental factors plays a major role in your phenotype with determinants such as climate, population of the species, and outside species involved in that specific food chain. An example of this is the skin tone in humans. Humans that live closer to the equator tend to have darker skin tones as opposed to people that live far way to the equator have lighter skin tones. This has to due to the human ability to produce vitamin D and how skin reacts to the sun. Another example is the thick fur of mammals that live in the snow. They have adapted to regulate their temperatures better according to their climate. If there is a disturbance in the food chain because of

Let me tell you a story about how tall Michael Jordan was. Michael Jordan was the tallest basketball player he was 8’’ 7’. He could dunk anything and barely had to jump. Nobody could block him not even the tallest player which was 6” 3’. But when he walks into buildings he always hits his head on the doorway. He can never find the right size bed to sleep on.

A number of quantitative genetic studies have been conducted to determine the genetic basis of the etiology of ADHD, resulting in the identification of multiple genes that are currently thought to be associated with the development of this disorder. Some of the associations made included the dopamine transporter gene (DAT1), dopamine receptor genes (DRD4) and (DRD5), serotonin 1B receptor gene (5HTR1B), the serotonin transporter promoter gene (5-HTTLPR) (Retz et al., 2008) and the SNAP25 gene which encodes for a protein generally important for synaptic function and neurotransmitter release (Gizer et al., 2009). Among those findings, the most significant association involves a variable number of tandem

Cote et al. (2007) points out the principle of the power law of practice, where great improvements are seen in the initial stages of practice, but the improvements level-off as one becomes an expert. This power relationship seems to be converted into a more linear relationship with increased deliberate practice. Violinists were studied, and time spent in deliberate practice was examined. By 18 years of age, experts accumulated 7,400 hours of practice, whereas intermediate-level performers had 5,300 hours, and lower-level performers only completed 3,400 hours. This linear law of practice seems to be generalizable to other domains, namely sport and chess (Cote et al., 2007, pp. 185). Although deliberate practice is very important, it is not the sole predictor of elite-level