But my point is not that everyone faces the same hardships, is just that those hardships or lack thereof are not genetic but acquired, probably mostly during early childhood but I'm not a psychologist so I don't know.
I just think we shouldn't dismiss achievements as a result of just talent (or luck). Luck actually plays a role, as well as many other things (As I said, economic and social situations and a lot more).
We just need to be sceptical of linking stuff to genes, humans are not so simple. There are many other factors at play, and even if we can't change ourselves, we may be able to raise our kids better by considering these subtleties and their possible impact.
Plus those "geniuses" love when people acknowledge their hard work, try talking to them about it. I find the amount of effort some people put into their craft to be staggering.
No everyone doesn't. Some people are born sick, some have better cardio, some take more weight easily, some people are born twice as big, some grow very little...
And it's the same with mind abilities. Your mind have various qualities, and you are not born equals to others. Some can concentrate better, some can abstract less, some more creative, some are shy.
Add all the differences, and yes, you have people that will have an easier time than others. Bolt and Tyson have been trained, but they started with a nice base to work on.
And obviously some people have easier or harder times. I am simply more aligned with modern humanist psychology, believing environment is way more relevant than genetics.
This doesn't mean you're at fault for sometimes having a hard time keeping up, this just means that it's most likely not in your genes.
Yes, technically, no one is born knowing trig or calculus, but the people with genetic gifts make the transition from 'shitty' to 'good' much faster than those without such endowments, all else being equal. An elementary school environment where all children come from similar backgrounds and are young enough that 1000's of hours of practice is impossible, teachers can readily identify the gifted from the average--the gifted tend to know so much more and learn so much faster than everyone else (in the classroom environment, where parenting cannot be a factor), and it cannot possibly be explained by parenting or practice, because these children are so young and otherwise are very homogeneous. This is because gifted children learn with fewer repetitions (due to superior working memory and or other factors), which is key.
I disagree; parenting during the earliest years makes a huge difference. By the time they get to elementary school, some parents have been reading to their kids and some haven't, some parents gave their kids more educationally incline toys and some didn't, and some kids, whether by parental choice or by chance, have been watching more educational programs on television or less.
Early brain development is fast enough that even a few years of environmental factors can absolutely make a difference.
The importance of right genes is pretty clear when you look at sports. Different sports favor different body types and if you don't have one, you won't suceed.
I know a couple musicians that have it, one of them lost it in an accident, both studied a lot, and most musicians I know, including some of the most successful ones, don't have this.
It's a good point, but empirically not verifiable, musicians train to identify intervals (Even the ones with perfect hearing), and in a similar discussion in class when I studied for a music degree, the only things the class disagreed were the impact of perfect hearing in the likelihood of becoming a musician, and that there may be some innate ability to maintain rhythm. On everything else we were unanimous in believing there is no such thing as talent.
Now you're free to believe differently, still, people that you think have "talent" will mostly be offended and feel that their hard work is not being recognized. Phelps isn't amazing BECAUSE of his body. His body is just a very small part of what makes him awesome, and though maybe a bit less awesome, he could still be awesome with a different body.
It's ALSO not your "fault" that you do not excel at something. Your experiences ever since you were a baby shaped you, your tastes and pretty much determined your whole life.
Still, there is no talent, ask any great programmer, musician, illustrator or whatever, every single one of them will say he/she was shitty, but loved it, so kept doing it. This doesn't completely discards the possibility of genetic disposition to liking something, but undeniably everyone starts on even ground.
Obviously, being complex areas they are affected by many indirect skills, and the more something is loved, the safer it is to assume the indirect skills involved are also loved or at least liked, indirect skills matter. Clearly fiddling with computers and watching movies that involve technology is not programming, but will make you better at it.
In the end, the best explanation so far is that your tastes are the defining factor. And yes, it can be argued that tastes are genetic, but currently there's not nearly enough data to debunk the standing theory, we need more studies and we need better studies, taking all variables into account and actually monitoring the subjects throughout their lives.
Maybe in 50 years we'll find out where our tastes come from. Not that it actually matters since it's out of our control anyways.