Are people born with a natural ability to do certain things really well? e.g maths

I personally believe that there are different beliefs on how intelligence can be expressed. I wasn't always the most able in my class until this year, when I began to believe in myself. There are an array of factors as to how performs in a subject but yet again, some may rebuke this answer.

And this is where personal sentiment takes over a rational debate.

All other things being equal (time invested, socio-economic factors, etc.), the most talented individual will do better. Terrence Tao has and works extremely hard but you can't take away the fact that he's a one-of-a-kind genius. You can take 100,000 babies, or any arbitrary number, from a good upbringing and make them do as much maths as possible, and it would be near impossible for any one of them to be as competent as him in maths.

Secondly, like the other poster and many others (if not the majority of people), I would always prefer being in the position where you succeed without hard work than the contrary. The world is what it is, and there isn't an absolute "natural justice" for the hard workers - you either succeed, or you don't.

So I am really good at Art and English Literature but I don't enjoy it I have zero motivation to do it, but I don't mind doing 5 hours of maths non stop. But I am not really good at it and I want to do a STEM degree. This year I didn't work as hard for maths as should've so its my fault as well, so I keep asking myself if would have done better if I worked really hard. Because I want to retake my AS, but I feel like im too stupid and should settle for a boring degree like Geography.

If someone is really bad at maths through hard work would they be able to achieve an A at a-level or is maths only for those that have the natural ability?

Is it possible to become excellent at something if you don't have the natural ability?

So what do you guys think?

Not true. Tell me what natural abilities you were born with? Did you already know the 12 times table? Could you already do long division? No, it is ridiculous to think you can do these things without working for it.

But you correct yourself at the end, it is only to do with motivation.

And this is where personal sentiment takes over a rational debate.

All other things being equal (time invested, socio-economic factors, etc.), the most talented individual will do better. Terrence Tao has and works extremely hard but you can't take away the fact that he's a one-of-a-kind genius. You can take 100,000 babies, or any arbitrary number, from a good upbringing and make them do as much maths as possible, and it would be near impossible for any one of them to be as competent as him in maths.

Secondly, like the other poster and many others (if not the majority of people), I would always prefer being in the position where you succeed without hard work than the contrary. The world is what it is, and there isn't an absolute "natural justice" for the hard workers - you either succeed, or you don't.

I was born with the natural ability to learn certain things (such as that times table you bang on about) much quicker than most.

On the other hand I can't for the life of me draw things.

What is ridiculous is claiming that everyone is equally able to do everything!

Well i think if you try hard enough you will get better at things, for example in primary school i used to be terrible at maths i mean like bottom table maths in years 1 2 3 and 4 5 6 bottom sets. This also happened for any other subject at primary school as well and i was not academically gifted according to my teachers and parents. These events have made me scared of maths and to this day I freeze whenever i have to do mental arithmetic.




By the time i reached secondary school, i applied myself and tried to understand what was being taught to me and i ended up getting a respectable B grade in GCSE maths at the end of year 11. Kinda ****ed up AS maths due to giving up rather early in the course, but the point is if you try hard enough in something you will improve, rather than just having talent itself because i was the most retarded kid ever in primary school and had 0 talent in any of my subjects but with a little motivation and hard work understanding the concepts I did decently in my gcse's with 1A*, 2A's, a load of B's and a C in french and i am currently awaiting my A levels so I can study Biochemistry.

If someone is really bad at maths through hard work would they be able to achieve an A at a-level or is maths only for those that have the natural ability?

Is it possible to become excellent at something if you don't have the natural ability?

Because in our society a lot of people assume that people are born intelligent which I think is true, but if your not born intelligent and you don't have the natural ability to study maths or sciences is it the end? You can't get into a STEM degree so you will be most likely unemployed.

So what do you guys think?

And this is where personal sentiment takes over a rational debate.

All other things being equal (time invested, socio-economic factors, etc.), the most talented individual will do better. Terrence Tao has and works extremely hard but you can't take away the fact that he's a one-of-a-kind genius. You can take 100,000 babies, or any arbitrary number, from a good upbringing and make them do as much maths as possible, and it would be near impossible for any one of them to be as competent as him in maths.

Secondly, like the other poster and many others (if not the majority of people), I would always prefer being in the position where you succeed without hard work than the contrary. The world is what it is, and there isn't an absolute "natural justice" for the hard workers - you either succeed, or you don't.

You aren't born with talent, you acquire it with work. I wouldn't call that person a genius. He probably was a genius at age 9 while doing university level maths, but that does not mean he still is.

You can't make someone do something, you can only provide the conditions to do it. How are you going to make a baby do maths? I'm interested what you were thinking when you wrote that...

Never did I say anything about succeeding without hard work lol



Yes, we all have the natural ability to learn things. That is not for debate. However you can't tell me you have the natural ability to do maths because I will laugh at you.

No, everyone is not equally able to do everything. But we are at birth.

That is your humble opinion, and I respect that, but I disagree. We are not born equal at birth genetically, and don't have the same predispositions. I would never dare to say I have the natural ability to do maths, but some individuals definitely do ( or more generally, have the ability to process information and have the creativity required to solve complex mathematical problems). A more fitting example would be Ramanujan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan

Obviously the baby example was an extreme hypothesis to emphasise the idea that his mathematical prowess is beyond "hard work" alone.

We are born equal at birth genetically. There is nothing to say that my genes are any better or worse than yours.

It's not natural ability that makes people like the guy you posted 'good at maths'. It is desire. If you read that link you would find that he got lent several books on maths at a young age and he himself went through all the problems in them in his free time.

The only difference between him and others is that he wanted to put the work in, for whatever reason.

FWIW, Maths at A-Level isn't really maths per se, it's just a bunch of crap you can half-ass and get an easy A* - whether or not you're good at maths, let alone whether or not you have an innate ability for it.