Is skill acquire or born?

Question

Is human skill acquire or born?

Answer 1

I think it's learned. Your potential for learning your born with.

Answer 2

With a few medical exceptions, I believe we are all born with the potential to be skillful. It is, however, up to each individual to develop it - whatever it or they is or are.

You may be born with a musical talent that shows early but is never developed....you would not have that skill perfected.

You only need to look at some of histories savants to prove that point. Mozart wrote his first music at 4, his first opera at 12. Look at Einstein who was doing mathematics nobody had ever seen before the age of 7.

In neither of these examples were these children alive long enough to have acquired these things. They were born with the skill and had the opportunity to develop it.

Answer 3

Usually experience trumps talent, for a while at least. I'm thinking here of chess tournaments ive played in where I was up against a very young person, who I could tell probably had much greater talent than I, but their lack of experience is usually too severe a handicap to overcome with any amount of talent. That said, if a person has really amazing talent, it will only require a little bit of experience (but still SOME) before they can compete on a real level. That sort of thing is a lot more rare than most people realise, however.
Everyone who has skill in something started out with some degree of talent, and they learn how to accent their strength and cover their weakness.
A person who really had nothing to start with will never be able to do more than appreciate the talent in others.
But true mastery of anything requires more than simply the combination of talent and experience. There is always a psychological battle involved.

Answer 4

All skill is acquired. This is the definition of a skill. Even walking is a skill most people take for granted. We have the innate ability that allows us to acquire these skills if we so choose. Some people's innate abilities to acquire specific skills are stronger than the innate abilities of others to acquire those same skills. For example, you may have a strong innate ability to learn to play a musical instrument, while someone else's innate ability to do so is weaker.

Often these innate abilities are left unexplored and many people assume they cannot play a musical instrument, cannot do Mathematics etc. because it is "not their talent". Practice often does make perfect. We all have the same innate abilities but, partly because of nurture, and partly because of our individual (yet slight) differences in anatomy (and physiology?) most of us will never explore the "tiniest" fraction of those innate abilities. I encourage everyone to stretch themselves. I have surprised myself a few times, and I have had some failed attempts :-). Most, if not all, human beings have a huge amount of innate ability (potential). Wer need to decide for ourselves if we are going to release it or keep it locked up until it is finally locked up in a coffin.

Answer 5

I think one's potential is inborn. It can be developed by nurture, or diminished by inattention. But eventually, in any field, skill must be acquired in order to express it. However, skill alone is not enough for distinction. Some can play the notes perfectly in time etc, and still not make music; the gifted can play "incorrectly" and make the music sing. The same is true in every art I've found. I believe the same holds good for all human activities. But none of us know our potential until we try.

Answer 6

You may be born with talent, but skill is acquired.

Answer 7

I think it is a little bit of both. If your a mother, you know that birthing is not always an acquired skill, if it was we'd all be experts! lol...but a lot of skills are acquired.

Answer 8

Skill is acquired.

Answer 9

Both - you can study a subject and learn to be a world reknown expert, or you can just have an inborn talent for some things.

Two examples: Robert Jarvik studied medicine, and developed an implantable artificial heart. Who would you rather have perform this procedure on you - him, or the guy who claims to have a knack for this sort of thing?

At the age of 4, Henry Kissinger is said to have talked a german soldier out of killing him and his family, just for being jews. No 4 year old could learn this sort of thing, could they?

Answer 10

Both....more acquired then born.

Answer 11

Sometimes there's that natural skill, but I believe that humans can adapt to any skill they want if they focus on it.