Nurture - with reference to the Polgar sisters. Watch the video at:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6378985927858479238
Of course, since humans are organisms, there is the overarching component of nature involved. This does not hold for the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz - wait, he did have a brain.
i think both play a part to some degree or another...i believe that people are born wih apptitudes in some areas and deficincies in others... and the apptitudes need nurtured to bring to fruition and the deficincies can be tempered through work too...so if youre not born with an apptitue toward the type of thinking one needs to become a grandmaster then no matter how much you beat chess into that kid theyll never become a master period....hard work can make up for a natural apptitude but only so much, it takes both nature and nurture to harvest greatness
I thought practise made perfect?
nurture with natural foods.
I have a natural aptitude to be a hack, and I nuture it by playing leisurely online games that I play with half seriousness.
Nurture.
The current Welsh champion comes from low grade stock he really is flailing about at the shallow end of the gene pool. His mother was a life-long inmate at the Trefynydd Mental Hospital and his dad was a toilet cleaner at the same establishment (well he was until Myfanwy's condition started to show). And yet from such an unpromising acorn did a great oak emerge.
I wonder what makes you think that people from a different background cannot be smart. In places where people require skills to survive a 'different social background', those are more often the places where people evolve get smarter.
However those people often lack the money to climb the social status stairs.
And as making money isn't a goal of most people with a high IQ, they often stay around these different backgrounds where they have been raised, and find rare escapes to the normal paterns.
People's brains adapt to their environment, so maybe if his father was a doctor, and his mother an architect, his environment would have been to easy to develop a smart brain like he has. Instead he might have gone play tennis, with no muscular athletic parents, that wouldn't "Darwinish" speaking not be good for a great sport career. In his environment chess might have been an escape, for his mind. He had some mental power which he couldn't put to use in other fields.
If one only is damn good at chess, like Fischer, but socially under developed is that a result of a supreme Darwin style mind?. Or is it a side effect for a 'mostly' correct perfect mind, with some errors. People who tend to be perfect, are also very risky to get frustrated, and can become even mentally ill, that's just another balance.
...i'ved just learned chess on yahoo just 2 months ago, & win some & lose some...merry go round
...but i found out that if nurtured, i'll be even more a better player at my age
better late than never at 44...
I thought practise made perfect?
yes but that is not the point it is not nature or nurture
Chess is one activity that this isn't even an argument. It is NATURE. In a sport where a 10 year old who has been playing for 2-3 years can(and has)beat a 40 year old grandmaster. There is no way the kid "worked" or studied more hours -he did not have the time yet! I read where a chess coach said that some people are "born with a chess board in their head". Good examples would be Capablanca, Fischer, Reti, Morphy, .. the list goes on. Capablanca watched his Dad play and then beat him as a small child. Come on! Fischer was so great because he had both. He was naturally talented(obviously) but also out worked every other chess player in the world. He was obsessed. Can you play a game blindfolded? I think Najdorf played as many as 40 blindfolded games simultaneously and won nearly all. How can you do that if you are not gifted? I can't remember the moves of a game I just played!
So talented.
Good . . Can you shorten storys?
Good . . Can you shorten storys?
And Jesus' dad was a carpenter and despite that he still turned out pretty good. He was Palestinian nationals runner up three years on the trot. That Herod played a mean Sicilian.
Jesus stepfather was a carpenter but His gene pool came from His mother and the Holy Spirit. However according to the Bible it was His stepfather who nurtured Him and trained him in carpentry. And He was totally no runner up!! He took first place all the way, He just looked like He wasn't going to win after His incredible material sacrifices but somehow He had that endgame calculated out perfectly exact and checkmated with a totally crushing victory!
Good word Brother.
And Jesus' dad was a carpenter and despite that he still turned out pretty good. He was Palestinian nationals runner up three years on the trot. That Herod played a mean Sicilian.
Jesus stepfather was a carpenter but His gene pool came from His mother and the Holy Spirit. However according to the Bible it was His stepfather who nurtured Him and trained him in carpentry. And He was totally no runner up!! He took first place all the way, He just looked like He wasn't going to win after His incredible material sacrifices but somehow He had that endgame calculated out perfectly exact and checkmated with a totally crushing victory!
Good word Brother.
Yup Crucifixion - checkmate! The ultimate material sacrifice. But seriously that was just a metaphor right??
its easter lay off the crushing material sacrifice that lead jesus to victory over death or whatever strange thing easter represents with the bunnies and eggs and colored baskets and such...nature lays the foundation, nurture builds the house...yes morphy, fischer, capa, reshvesky, carlson and other prodigies wouldnt have been prodigies if they werent exposed to chess and then encouraged to play...the foundation was there (nature) but if no one showed them to play (nurture) there wouldnt have been the cuban chess machine or the wunderkind carlson
Beast, after googling your post about Dai Young I found that you were speaking a load of complete rubbish. I don't really see how anyone could take this topic seriously- it is utterly pointless. Now why don't you post something decent for once.
its not an utterly pointless topic, its a serious field of study in sociology and psychology...this nature vs nurture is very important to our understanding of the human condition
As a twin I have been involved in a number of studies in this area. It was only through these scientific analyses that it was discovered that my twin brother Nkrumhu Jahannes was not actually identical to me. Turned out he was adopted from Malawi.
Pastroy,Maybe you have to build your thinking from the bottom and never leave a brick before going up.