Nature vs. Nurture?

Both.

95% is "nurture."

First off, we have to agree that that the desire to learn effective, fast, and accurate shooting is not a huge mark in the "nature" column. Nothing requiring dedicated effort happens without the desire to make it happen. Is that interest learned or inherent in someone's personality? I suggest we must set that question aside.

From a physical ability standpoint, shooting is not like powerlifting or marathon running, generally. Almost anyone can be taught to shoot very well, and an open minded student can advance faster and farther than a life-long shooter who knows it all and won't change.

Proficiency and mastery take a LOT of effort and ammo, but the results of quality practice, exercised over a significant training period, can bring just about any normally-abled person to the point of being a serious competitor.

But...at the very highest levels of skill ... I am convinced nature does separate the excellent shooter from the superhuman greats we marvel at.

You can take Me and Jerry Miculek, and have us both shoot 80,000 rds a year for 10 years+, and there are things about his brain and his physiology that will simply make him a cut above. Now there's no way to prove or disprove that, most likely, but I do believe it.

There's what the average person can do. Then there's what the average person could do given perfect and unlimited practice. Then there's what the "freaks of nature" can do, given perfect and unlimited practice.

That's how you get 6-reload-6 in under 3 seconds.

Both.

95% is "nurture."

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You can take Me and Jerry Miculek, and have us both shoot 80,000 rds a year for 10 years+, and there are things about his brain and his physiology that will simply make him a cut above. Now there's no way to prove or disprove that, most likely, but I do believe it.

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I agree with that.

Unfortunately, I'm one who requires nurturing.

I've even seen it first hand.

My sons are the same way, they need nurturing. When I introduced my girlfriend to rifles, I discovered she was slightly freakish as Sam mentioned here:

There's what the average person can do. Then there's what the average person could do given perfect and unlimited practice. Then there's what the "freaks of nature" can do, given perfect and unlimited practice.

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She was making great hits with very little instruction. I decided to let her try some things a little while back. I set highlighter pens and shotgun shell empties up at about 20-25 yards and some more at 15 yards. She had only shot pistols with her grandparents at family range trips occasionally and never received any real instruction. I gave her a super brief rundown on sight picture and grip (after the safety stuff and mechanical stuff of course) and she was hitting those tiny targets with iron sights on a buckmark...with more consistency than me.

Does she possess a freakish innate ability? Is her better than 20-20 eyesight the reason? I don't know, but she can out-shoot many people that have been practicing for much longer than her.

Interesting way this thread approaches this question. I can say that there are some people with very good natural instincts who just seem to pick up the finer points of shooting quicker than others. However, training helps all.

In my experience with Instructing I actually prefer to have a completely novice shooter. It only takes a few easy exercises for them to overcome their initial fear of the firearm and move directly into polishing on fundamentals. People who have been doing it for awhile, or some of the more "natural" shooters may be very effective but it's often more difficult to fine tune their abilities and make them even better because of their usual stubbornness to try something new.

I'm going to lean more on the side of training for this one, but I'll still give a sizable benefit to natural skills, as they really do help. The combination of the two is what can really make an expert shooter in a very short amount of time. So I'll say 65% training to 35% natural skill, with the add on that the training can overcome any lack of natural skill given enough time.

As far as eyesight, I've had the privilege of seeing an incredibly near sighted man shoot incredibly well because he was able to still make out shapes in the distance so all he had to do was focus on the front sight in front of the shape. The downside of course was his ability to discern between targets.

I don't know anyone better qualified to weigh in on this subject than Louis Awerbuck...

There is nothing to taking a neophyte and teaching him how to shoot. The best-shooting pistol class you will ever see is a dozen fourteen-year-old females who have never touched a pistol. Are they gunfighters? I don’t know, but as far as mechanical shooting goes you can’t ask for anything more. A class of fourteen-year-old females will turn out amazing pistol shooters. They don’t have an ego, they haven’t got the prior mistakes, so they don’t know how to miss. -- http://www.louisawerbuckinterviewwithamadman.blogspot.com/

Are shooting skills something you are born with or something that has to be developed, or rather, can be developed?

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IMHO, someone with good eye hand coordination is well ahead of the curve when it comes to shooting sports.

That being said, buddy of mine is a Grand Master class IPSC shooter and I never, ever shoot with him. When I shot competitively, I could stay at about 80% of his score. I went with him to one of his practice sessions and that was enough. That guy trains harder than I have any desire. *

So, I'd add drive and determination to what it takes to become a high ranked shooter and (IMHO) would place it ahead of physical attributes.


* He tells me his brother is a much better mechanical shot,

I couldn't agree more with the Awerbuck quote!

If you want to be an Olympic level, record setting athlete in certain events you pretty much have to have the ACTN3 gene. No amount of training can make up for it.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1180686/

Interestingly, all male Olympian power athletes in our cohort had at least one copy of the functional R allele of ACTN3 (associated with the presence of α-actinin-3 in skeletal muscle), suggesting that “every variable counts” at the highest levels of sporting competition.

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No doubt that there is some gene that codes out in some way to make guys like Miculek or Koenig possible.

I was speaking with some people associated with a big city basketball team. I'm not a sports person at all, but they were talking about what it takes to perform at that level. With their discussion, I considered the concept of "physical genius", physical characteristics that place one in the 99th percentile.

I can imagine some having motor control, eyesight and hand/eye coordination that is unusual.

Do you believe that there are some folks that are naturally better shooters than others?

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I vote "both"...

Some have a nature that requires much less nurture to achieve the same outcome.

Regardless of your nature, you can benefit from good nurture and improve.... you may just have to work harder

Good eyesight helps too.

The few with outstanding nature that receive outstanding nurture and hold their lives together (and maybe get a few lucky breaks) become legends.

But...at the very highest levels of skill ... I am convinced nature does separate the excellent shooter from the superhuman greats we marvel at.

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Absolutely.

Motivation, hard work and effort can get you pretty far, but in the end, genetics always has a say. Given the same level of commitment and training, genetics will pretty much always come out on top.

I love these topics. Alot of food for thought.

In that above study, you could probably use autistic men vs. college women and it'd prob show something different.

Depends on what your objective is.

I've taken a few newbies out to shoot. It amazes me how I really can't predict with certainty who will be a better shot or not.

Can't judge a book by the cover, eh?

+1 for both.

I'm a decent shot, nowhere near great, but I generally hit what I'm aiming at.

My step daughter, however, really surprised me the first time I took her shooting. First time behind a real rifle ( even if it was just a .22) I had 12"x12" targets set up at about 10 yards. She told me she didn't want to shoot the close target and picked her own. She pointed at a 3" clay that lay on its side unbroken, half hidden in the grass. She took her time, lined up the shot with a scope I had zeroed for 50 yards. To everyone's surprise she dusted the things on her first shot. the clay was resting at the bottom of the burm at 100 yards. Color me stunned. Granted, it may have been a fluke, but she is a very patient shooter. She takes her time when she lines up her shots. She's had zero formal training and only a little informal training from me. I don't know where she gets it.

Eye sight is a big factor i believe. Since my middle age eyes showed up, i really have to concentrate harder to make good shots and i have had to increase my practice to stay a decent shot. I think some of those novice - great shooters have an advantage - they don't tend to overthink shooting - they aim - and fire.

Over 50 years ago i built my first slingshot. I learned to take down pheasant and quail before I learned there was a season for them. No sights, no aimed shots, just marbles and point shooting which got dinner for my family and some neighbors. 10 years later the Army taught me how to use sights. I shot on three Army teams and did well. I can still use sights if needed, but when it is a moving shot on elk, I can lob in a 45-70 without really using them. Coyote and hog out to 80 yds go down running to my 357 Win and I cannot remember ever taking a sight picture. Self defense is a J frame 38, after the first 2-300 rds with a new pistol I never really see the sights again. My brother in law reaches out over 300 yds to take an elk or coyote and just calls me a natural snapshooter. I still make and use slingshots.

blindhari

The biological differences in each gender's brain might give a woman an advantage in shooting.

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This isn't the case in U.S.P.S.A..



U.S.P.S.A. uses a wide variety of "classifier" stages to gauge shooter performance. These stages are set up and shot the same way by each shooter, and each shooters score is recorded and sent to HQ. The better and more consistently you shoot, the higher your classification.

Classification break down....

Classification Bracket Percentages
Grand Master 95 to 100%
Master 85 to 94.9%
A 75 to 84.9%
B 60 to 74.9%
C 40 to 59.9%
D 2 to 40%

The shooter with the top score sets the standard at 100%, and each shooters' score is represented as a percentage of that top score.

As it stands now, U.S.P.S.A. has around 19000 members, and to this day, there hasn't been a single female capable of achieving a grand master classification, and only 11 that have achieved a master classification. While gender may not be the limiting factor, it is certainly not an advantage either.

There are some excellent female shooters out there, however, when you get into the "elite" levels of any sport, genetics seem to favor the males.

Some people are definitely naturally better than others when just starting out, and some are also naturally better than others at the highest skill level, although the reasons are probably different between these two classifications.

For novices, psychology seems to play a much larger role, which makes sense because they're nowhere near pushing the boundaries of human physiology at this point. The main difference between novices, I think, is how they squeeze the trigger. Some have a tendency to jerk it hard, while others tend to squeeze it gradually. How well they take instruction plays a major role in this, of course, but there are probably random factors (maybe some physiological?) involved as well. It is also possible that some people are inherently more prone to flinching than others. However, any such deficiencies can be overcome with training and practice, so just because one is a "natural" when just starting out does not necessarily imply that one has greater potential at higher skill levels.

Once the skill level gets high enough, I think that physiological differences begin to play an increasingly significant role. For example, faster reflexes (really psychological, but it's a measurable thing so I'm lumping it in with physiological traits) and quicker, stronger muscles help with faster aiming and pulling the trigger (particularly those of DA revolvers) faster without throwing one's aim off. Many things can be learned, given sufficient determination and work, but some things cannot. Some of the same physiological advantages that men generally have over women at the highest levels of many types of competition seem to apply to shooting as well.

Below a certain level, these differences are probably negligible, and are overshadowed by other factors, such as the ability and willingness to follow instructions, as well as flexibility and open-mindedness in one's approach, as opposed to assuming that one is born knowing exactly how to shoot. Whether there is a general difference between women and men in these respects at intermediate levels is uncertain in my view, but as many of us have observed over time, younger women appear to have an overall advantage over younger men at the novice level for these reasons (psychological).

Back to the real topic, as implied above I would agree with Sam1911 that it's about 95% nurture, with nature taking over only at the highest level of skill.

If you're reasonably fit and don't have any underlying problems then you should be able to shoot to a basic level with training. But when you're dealing with the advanced levels and competition, nature comes into play more and more. From eyesight to body proportions.

There are some excellent female shooters out there, however, when you get into the "elite" levels of any sport, genetics seem to favor the males.

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That's very active pistol shooting, which quite obviously favors stronger arms and bodies. Try beating my niece in a BB gun shootout. Actually she recently did a shootout like this for charity, where she trounced a bunch of big strong men.

So if it is so much nurture then someone that shoots regularly should shoot better!!

At the last shoot a young college student showed up. He looked like he wanted to shoot. I asked "are you shooting??" NO DONT HAVE A GUN.

Good use that one..I suggested. He bought a box of ammo-Wolf ME. At first I suggested Eley black box-what I was shooting. He never shot the gun before and had not shot much in year or so.

I shot 250-16x-USBR, 25 yards. With his Wolf ME he shot my gun, first time, 250 14x.

Glad he didnt use the black box. BUT it would not have been the first time I had been beaten with my own gun by a neophyte shooter..or I need to get cheaper ammo.