I think this is a better article than most of the commenters here imply. I think Adams realizes that genetics plays a role, that there is such a thing as good and bad practice. But he's not claiming any universals: rather he's proposing a deft experiment to show how ability correlates to practice rather than to innate talent with regard to one particular arbitrary skill.
I don't know exactly how his experiment would turn out. And it would be hard to decorrelate practice time from innate ability --- I certainly find it difficult to keep dedicating time toward activities in which I see no progress being made. But it's a good experiment, and a style of reality-based learning we should encourage.
My intuition is that he's right, and that the winners would be dominated by those who spent the most time practicing. But I'd love to have real numbers against which to test that intuition.
> I don't know exactly how his experiment would turn out.
I'm sure there would be correlation, but I suspect that it would be very far from perfect, possibly because of talent or inadvertently (or deliberately) discovering better and more effective ways to practice.
I'm reminded me of when I was a kid and played chess with a friend a lot. At first I could beat him and we played about the same amount but suddenly he inexplicably got far better than me. It bugged the hell out of me:)
So I think the result of Adams' "lesson" would actually be to teach people that they have strengths and weaknesses, and practice helps a lot, but it will (rather quickly) get swamped by talent in any realistic endeavor. And results might also be strongly affected by effective coaching or acquiring specific knowledge to make those hours of practice dramatically more effective.
I don't know exactly how his experiment would turn out. And it would be hard to decorrelate practice time from innate ability --- I certainly find it difficult to keep dedicating time toward activities in which I see no progress being made. But it's a good experiment, and a style of reality-based learning we should encourage.
My intuition is that he's right, and that the winners would be dominated by those who spent the most time practicing. But I'd love to have real numbers against which to test that intuition.