Everyone is capable of, and can benefit from, mathematical thinking

I agree with the sentiment of this. I think our obsession with innate mathematical skill and genius is so detrimental to the growth mindset that you need to have in order to learn things.

I've been working a lot on my math skills lately (as an adult). A mindset I've had in the past is that "if it's hard, then that means you've hit your ceiling and you're wasting your time." But really, the opposite is true. If it's easy, then it means you already know this material, and you're wasting your time.

> I agree with the sentiment of this. I think our obsession with innate ~~mathematical~~ skill and genius is so detrimental to the growth mindset that you need to have in order to learn things.

I strongly believe that the average human being can be exceptional in any niche topic given enough time, dedication and focus.

The author of the book has picked out mathematics because that was what he was interested in. The reality is that this rule applies to everything.

The belief that some people have an innate skill that they are born with is deeply unhelpful. Whilst some people (mostly spectrum) do seem have an innate talent, I would argue that it is more an inbuilt ability to hyper focus on a topic, whether that topic be mathematics, Star Trek, dinosaurs or legacy console games from the 1980’s.

I think we do our children a disservice by convincing them that some of their peers are just “born with it”, because it discourages them from continuing to try.

What we should be teaching children is HOW to learn. At the moment it’s a by-product of learning about some topic. If we look at the old adage “feed a man a fish”, the same is true of learning.

“Teach someone mathematics and they will learn mathematics. Teach someone to learn and they will learn anything”.

> I strongly believe that the average human being can be exceptional in any niche topic given enough time, dedication and focus.

I respectfully, but strongly, disagree. There's a reason most NBA players are over 2 meters tall, and one does not become taller with time, dedication nor focus.

It might be different for intellectual skills but I am not that sure.

Almost anyone can become decent at almost anything though. Which is good already!

> I respectfully, but strongly, disagree. There's a reason most NBA players are over 2 meters tall, and one does not become taller with time, dedication nor focus.

Being tall isn't a skill. I suspect you could be skillful enough at basketball to overcome the hight disadvantage. However, I think most people who might become that skillful see the high disadvantage (plus the general difficulty of becoming a pro basketball player) and take a different path through life. It's also possible that the amount of time that would be needed to grow your skill past the height disadvantage is too long, so it's not feasible to do it to gain a position in the NBA.

Height is one physical attribute that helps, and professional players are mostly above average height for a reason. But also hand-eye coordination and fast-twitch muscles help even more. Many basketball players are very explosive athletes, because it's a sport with a relatively small play area and lots of quick movements are needed.

Track and swimming are where innate physical attributes have the most obvious benefits. Michael Phelphs had the perfect body for swimming. There is no amount of trainingg that 99.999% of the population could do to get close to what Usain Bolt ran. Most humans could not train to run under 4 minutes in a mile or under 2:30 in a marathon. They just don't have the right muscular and cardiovascular physiology.

Team sports are of course more complicated as other qualities come into play that aren't as directly physiological.