>>
>>If both come into play, then surely some people have
>>headstarts and others handicaps? "Special aptitude" doesn't
>>mean anyone's born a world beater... it just means they're
>>born with a slight headstart compared to others.
>>
>
>Still doesn't resonate with me. The world/nature is not a
>basketball court or a stage. Many of our activities are
>arbitrary and do not measure human skill and ability in a
>universal way. Take a 7 foot basketball player and put him on
>another sports field and suddenly all that "god given talent"
>is no longer there. Some people have had the good fortune of
>doing what they love and having physical features which favor
>that passion. Even so, there are human beings in all shapes
>and sizes that excel in a myriad of sports and artistic
>pursuits regardless of their physical features and enjoy a lot
>of success. There are too many generalization's and examples
>of individuals who had no seeming "talent" who persevered and
>accomplished great things.

Talent is very subjective indeed. Obviously being 7 feet tall is an advantage (and a natural one at that) to playing basketball, but it's a natural disadvantage in other areas (for instance being a skateboarder). The same can be said of Autistic "Savants" - their social disadvantages can be crippling, but if placed in the right scenario they can outshine any of us mentally. Maybe you're just confusing what the word "talent" really means?

Stephen Hawking's brain or LeBron James' height would be no great advantage if they'd ended up working in call centers... fortunately for the rest of us, their ridiculous talents were unlocked and pointed in the right direction.

>I don't see it that way at all. You have found a convenient
>way to frame your argument using my example. I can do the same
>and we can go back and forth until we are blue in the face,
>and neither of us will be able to prove the other wrong in an
>objective and universal way. Take Einstein for example, he had
>no "natural aptitude" for mathematics and his equations have
>changed the course of history. By all account he was
>considered a failure until his breakthrough's. You believe in
>talent, and I don't. That's really what it comes down to.

Do you believe in variation in the rest of the human body? Do you believe we're born with different quality of vision and hearing? Do you believe that we're born with different heights? Some of us are naturally stronger or skinnier than others?

Why would genetics cause differentiation in every other component of the human body and not the brain, which is demonstrably the most complex and varying organ in adults?