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Douglas_Knight comments on [Link] Quantity Always Trumps Quality - Less Wrong
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I see your anecdote, and I raise it and the evidence hierarchy with Ericsson's correlational research on "deliberate practice".
I can't parse your sentence, so I have no idea what you are saying, but two things that may be relevant:
1. This is a randomized controlled experiment, not an anecdote.
2. This experiment shows benefit from arbitrary practice, not deliberate practice.
Ah, the zeugma - always a classy figure of speech, but sometimes a risky one. Victor Hugo was good at them.
Well, it might even be a parable, which is even worse than an anecdote!
If the point of your original comment was to say that this contradicts Ericsson's work, I suggest you rewrite it.
There are lots of reasons to be skeptical of this claim, but calling it an "anecdote" evokes all the wrong ones. Frankly, I can only describe this usage as deceit. I blame the hierarchy of evidence.
Furthermore, if that was the point he should retract it in shame.
Why do you care that it is third-hand? Do you think something was lost in the transmission from Atwood to Konvistador? It is easy to check that nothing was lost there. The fact that it is third-hand is evidence of memetic stability, but tracking down the book will not change that. (and I could level the same charge at Ericsson)
In fact, I did look at the book and I assert (sadly) that nothing was lost in Kevin Kelly's transcription. It is the first paragraph of the section and moves on to drawing conclusions.
Sourcing is key because every step introduces error. And you misunderstand: Atwood to Konkvistador would be a fourth-hand, if one wanted to include it. Count the steps.
So then, it's essentially worthless. There is no citation, no context, nothing to situate it in any time, place, country or year besides 'the 20th century': we can't even tell how many steps we are removed from the origin since you say there was no context like "many years ago, an old friend of mine was taking a pottery class".
Just another persuasive parable floating around.
I'll stick with Ericsson's research, thanks. Mindless practice is not useful; deliberate practice is useful.
Where does Ericsson say this?
He doesn't say that explicitly that I can recall; it's just the theme running through his research, background research, and the theories.
Thanks for teaching me a lesson on second-hand sources.
I didn't see this parable extolling the virtue of mindless practice rather than the virtue of doing huge amounts of work if you really want to create remarkable outliers.
What ensures "memetic stability", Heisenberg compensators? Or just the fact that it was passed along?