DOES THE EXISTENCE OF CHILD PRODIGIES PROVE THE EXISTENCE OF INNATE TALENTS?
42. Richardson says that all studies of prodigies, whether it be musical, or mathematical, or poetic, or athletic, have failed to show innateness of these talents. Of course, finding innateness may be difficult, since it is a rule-out diagnosis, which is to say that one can only conclude, and tentatively at that, that something is innate if you cannot find, at least for the time being, an alternative explanation for it. But these studies have found the alternative explanation, according to Richardson. They have shown that the prodigious talents of these children are always the result of hard work, by both the child and her/his teacher(s)–who are often the child’s parent(s). 43. A couple of examples serve to illustrate the point. Mozart’s father was a composer, who taught his son how to play several instruments and how to compose music when he was barely old enough to communicate. His father traveled around Europe showing off his son for his own aggrandizement–a common enough phenomen
