Then you just dismiss what you don't want to believe. You admitted that you studied chess for years. How come you're not up there challenging Magnus, and Anand?

Chess Mentor played a part in my progress.

I played chess for years, I didn't study it that much, like masters study. There are so many ways a person may study something, woodshover, that there will be various gradations from person to person. How well one concentrates upon a given subject is multi-faceted. Quotidian existence, with it's manifold of impressions, has a huge, unexplainable effect upon a person's concentration.

I'm not going to believe in something which could easily be dismissed, woodshover. Declarations about artists and such being born with a genius-without-experience, and spectators all agreeing upon beholding this "genius", is from fairy-tale, god-cloud world

 People who think everybody is equally talented are the ones who believe in fairy tales. There have been boat loads of players who did study their asses off from childhood, and never even approached the GM level. Their have been boat loads of people who studied music, art etc. who never even came close to making it to the top in their chosen field. I had a foster sister who spent years, and YEARS playing the clarinet, and only got to be mediocre while other people studied less, and got FAR better.

 Wasn't Einstein born a genius? His IQ was estimated to be genius level.

 He was.

"Equally talented" doesn't make much sense, woodshover, and since you quoted me, I'm assuming that you think I made such a claim. I didn't. I said people can not study, nor concentrate the same way. Too many variables and factors involved. What I do understand is that you don't think much of your sister's painting, nor hers, or theirs clarinet playing.

Their. Two different people. One blood sister, one foster. You said talent doesn't exist.

I hate to repeat myself, woodshover, but I said "talent", as a word used to compliment, does exist. What doesn't exist are fairies touching their magical wands on certain impregnated wombs.

Why do those who argue against innate talent always bring magic/religion into it? 

I hate to argue with frenchmen, but all men are not created equal.

Aren't most biological traits, including intelligence, normally distributed?

It is highly probable that some people will be off in the tails of the curve.

Guys, natural talent obviously does not exist. People's brains are all exactly equal at birth just like every other part of their anatomy!

Because the word "innate" carries with it, "predetermination". Predetermination implies a metaphysical being directing the fate of free-being's choices. This metaphysical being is very elusive, as if magically appearing at the moment where a rational mind has an unanswerable question. In Philosophy, this metaphysical being is referred to as "the god of gaps" in understanding.

Nah.  What'd Hegel know, anyway?

Innate just means you're born with it.

I believe in luck; many of my buddies give me hell for it.  "Luck God, etc."

Luck's just a statistical anomaly...like talent.

So by your logic the fact that I can predetermine my moves in CC implies I am god?

Unless you can demonstrate how such a thing as being born with talent can be shown, then we are left with the experience of the individual, coupled with the motivations of the spectator, in deciding who is "talented", or not.

If you wish people to worship you for doing nothing, then there is no doubt that you are a god.

I can't recall seeing many arguments consisting of statistics vs philosophy. This should be entertaining.

No, no.  Some things are empirical.

For instance, who can throw this rock the farthest?

I wasn't born with the rhetorical talent to trade barbs with you, trysts.

Let's posit that intelligence can take several different forms such as:

spatial

verbal

mathematical

etc.

Shouldn't there be a distribution curve for each aspect of intelligence? Some might more commonly have an intersection, but nevertheless, there is a range of intelligence (call it aptitude, if you will) for various skill areas.