> the research roundly rejects the idea that deliberate practice is as big a factor as Gladwell claims
Do you have more information on this? I know lots of social science studies have not stood the test of time, but I didn't know Anders Ericsson's paper had big problems.
It's not that deliberate practice isn't a big factor and very important. It's the idea that it's massively and overwhelmingly decisive.
For example, this meta-analysis of sports performance found that deliberate practice was important but not overwhelmingly so, accounting of 18% of performance on average.
It seems like there is a lot of plasticity in human performance, and it may be the case that many of us can get pretty good at a lot of things, but there also appear to be many factors distinct from practice that make substantial contributions to performance.
Do you have more information on this? I know lots of social science studies have not stood the test of time, but I didn't know Anders Ericsson's paper had big problems.