You said that you had experienced aggresive reaction of audience when you had been telling them that talent is something you have to born with.
Some weeks ago I took part in quite opposite discussion. My friend tried to persuade others that talent is not importent on the master level in any field. He was appealing to Ericsson’s studies about deliberate practice.
Reactions of some people taking part in the discussion were opposite to those you’ve mentioned. Some of them were furious when told that maybe they could achived mastery on mastery on any field they want. They ‘only’ need to practice a lot in a deliberate way.

This discussion took part in Poland. I don’t know on which countries you had met your audience but maybe this are some cultural differences.

Not sure how long it’s available and it might only be so in the UK, but it’s there.

Simon W probably will have more details.

I looked up the papers published in Nature (2001) and Journal of Psychophysiology (2006). They seem rather cautious (as honest scientific research should be); claiming merely that the EEG research supports and extends the standard chunking theories of expert memory: Professional players access long-term memory stored in the neocortex, while the amateurs are busy encoding new information in the temporal lobe (hippocampus maybe).

Many in the expertise research tradition have struggled to find evidence of innate differences apart from serious neurological disorders. K. Anders Ericsson has even claimed that height and body size are the only known genetically determined limitations on skilled performance (in sports where those physical attributes are relevant). On the other hand:

“We reject an important role for innate ability. It is quite plausible, however, that heritable individual differences might influence processes related to motivation and the original enjoyment of the activities in the domain[...]” (Ericsson, K.A., R.T. Krampe & C. Tesch-Römer (1993). Psychol. Rev. 100, p.399).

By the way, I’m not so sure that this “no innate abilities, only motivation and hard work” is the standard belief of an average audience. The view of Einsten, Mozart, Da Vinci, Capablanca etc. etc. as innately gifted are very popular and intuitively appealing. But it has been hard to prove until now, according to Ericsson.

The final paragraph of Amidzic, Riehle & Elbert (2006) points forward to the arguments Dr. Amidzic presents here:

“It is possible that the chunks, their creation, and the ability of the brain to store and execute chunks in the neocortex (creation and establishment of skills) are what determines giftedness for a particular task and that they are the key factor in the creation of expert memory, and not just that of chess players.” (p.257)

If there is now new evidence that can clarify to what extent expert/amateur memory differences are innate or built up by training, that will be very interesting to hear about. I certainly hope I will be able to see the Horizons show at some point even here in Norway!

Thanks for your comment trying to protect me from further personal attacks on your website. These personal attacks and disagreement with my research is not new for me. From my experience, as soon as you are telling to the bright audience of average people that gifted persons like Simon Williams are born exceptional and not just made through training only, the average audience gets very emotional and aggressive. They believe and want to believe that Simon Williams and other gifted people are in fact just ordinary average people and nothing else but a product of hard work, and everybody from that average audience could make the same achievement only if they want to spend many years of training. That is absolutely wrong. Average audience want to believe that anybody could become new Mozart, Tesla, Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Mikhail Tal or Simon Williams just through hard work. This is absurd and simply not truth. According to my research in that area, Simon Williams is born and from Nature or God gifted person with exceptional abilities, exceptional brain and genes. His hard work studding chess is required in order to grow, but his giftedness is born, it is very rare, and I admire that giftedness.

Through my research I see that people are not born with equal abilities and the nature or God didn’t give to all people the equal physical and mental qualities. But what is equal in nature? Nothing. Equality is simply not natural. I understand that it is much easier to disagree with my research, to attack and to try to insult me then to deal with that for many average people very painful low of nature. I am not responsible and guilty for the mediocrity in the world, and also not responsible that there are clear mental differences between average and gifted persons. I am just pointing to these mental differences between them.

But if the bright average audience wants to show me that my research and my point of view are wrong, then they have to prove it with facts and not just with disagreement and/or insulting. The best way is to open for example an “Institution For Creation Of Gifted People and Genius”, where all parents could bring their children in order to make them genius in any area of human occupation, where the new Mozart, Tesla, Einstein, Leonardo da Vinci, Mikhail Tal or Simon Williams will be created from average people. After that I will publicly admit that I was wrong.

Regards,
Dr. Ognjen Amidzic