Göbekli Tepe. By Charles C.
Mann Photograph by Vincent J. Musi Every now and then the dawn of civilization is reenacted on a remote hilltop in southern Turkey. The reenactors are busloads of tourists—usually Turkish, sometimes European. How To Raise A Superstar. The 10,000 hour rule has become a cliche.
This is the idea, first espoused by K. Anders Ericsson, a pyschologist at Florida State University, that it takes about 10,000 hours of practice before any individual can become an expert. The corollary of this rule is that that differences in talent reflect differences in the amount and style of practice, and not differences in innate ability.
As Ericsson wrote in his influential review article “The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance”: “The differences between expert performers and normal adults are not immutable, that is, due to genetically prescribed talent. Instead, these differences reflect a life-long period of deliberate effort to improve performance.” The Risks and Rewards of Royal Incest. In fact, while virtually every culture in recorded history has held sibling or parent-child couplings taboo, royalty have been exempted in many societies, including ancient Egypt, Inca Peru, and, at times, Central Africa, Mexico, and Thailand.
And while royal families in Europe avoided sibling incest, many, including the Hohenzollerns of Prussia, the Bourbons of France, and the British royal family, often married cousins. The Spanish Habsburgs, who ruled for nearly 200 years, frequently married among close relatives. Their dynasty ended in 1700 with the death of Charles II, a king so riddled with health and development problems that he didn't talk until he was four or walk until he was eight. He also had trouble chewing food and couldn't sire a child.
The physical problems faced by Charles and the pharaoh Tutankhamun, the son of siblings, point to one possible explanation for the near-universal incest taboo: Overlapping genes can backfire. Your Brain on Computers - Studying the Brain Off the Grid, Professors Find Clarity.