• bpev@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Reminds me, Malcom Gladwell’s “Outliers” book had a section about his interesting observation that pro hockey players birthdays are skewed to the earlier months of the year. He attributed that to a kind of butterfly effect:

    1. youth hockey leagues set league cutoffs by age
    2. the slightly older kids are bigger and stronger
    3. because they do better at the beginning, they get more playing time, more encouragement, maybe go to more “all-star” kind of things, where they might get extra coaching
    4. eventually those kids actually just are better, because they had a better environment to grow.

    I mean idk how accurate this exact instance is, but I feel it’s a good thought experiment in thinking of how seemingly insignificant parts of the environment can impact whatever talent is. The whole nature vs nurture thing.