Getting to Carnegie Hall? Natural-born Talent or Deliberate Practice?

An interesting debate about the respective roles of natural talent vs. deliberate practice rages among those interested in the origins of high-achieving individuals.  A 2014 NY Times article titled How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall?  Talent! explores this debate and leans toward the in-born talent side of the discussion.  In so many ways, this debates seems as misguided and as obsolete as the ancient Nature vs. Nurture debate in human development.  Well, in fact, it is this same debate, looked at from one particular perspective, extraordinary achievement.

As I read the discussion of nature vs. nurture, genes vs. environment in biology, the scientific community has come to a consensus that not only are both factors essential, there are large interaction effects between them.  For example, certain environmental factors are known to turn on certain genes so that they are expressed.  How can this not be true in the cases of talent vs. practice?

It is hard to make the argument that it is possible to reach the highest levels of performance in a significant field today without considerable deliberate practice. K.A. Ericsson, the researcher whose famous study resulted in what has become known as the "10,000 hour" principle, defines deliberate practice as focused time spent with a teacher or coach, or working hard on mastering progressively difficult steps or phases in the skill.  Michael Jordan spending hours shooting free-throws alone in the gym counts.  Just shooting causal hoops with friends does not.