There are some rare skills that a few people can do but even the best can’t really explain to anyone else how they are doing it.
I have heard that sexing chicks by sight (as in baby chickens) is an example. The people that can do it just know. Young chicks look mostly the same except to rare people that can sort them at a glance.
Another is optimizing orbital trajectories for long space flights. The number of variables and possibilities is so large that even computers can’t tell you what the best one is but there are people who figure it out intuitively.
IMHO, how to play music by ear, or how to compose music. I’m not 100% sure it can’t be taught, but it could be extremely difficult to transport from a teacher’s brain into a student’s brain.
Also, might I add that “sexing chicks” sounds like a totally different skill set than what it really is…
And are you sure computers can’t figure out optimal trajectories for long space flights? That sounds like precisely something what a computer would be better at than a human.
I was going to go with something with music as well. I’ve given playing music the old college try quite a few times. It’s never clicked for me, and I really have worked at it. Maybe it takes longer or I needed to put more work into it, but for all the hours I’ve but into it, I feel like I should be able to pick up something and play something. Along the same lines I don’t think you can teach creativity. Maybe good teachers can unlock what’s there, but I don’t think you can be learned.
The OP mentioned sexing checks by sight. How about finding 4 leaf clovers. I don’t think I’ve ever found one, but it seems like some people can’t walk outside without finding them.
I am not sure what the state of the art is but orbital trajectories were still people based the last time I checked. Computers help with the calculations of course but there were only a few people in the world that could make the actual design and decisions. The semi-realistic movie “The Martian” has one of them in it as a plot point. Nobody else knows how to do his job or can even if they had to. That is what I am asking.
I don’t believe that. You mean to tell me a supercomputer can’t figure out the trajectory to put a satellite in orbit around Jupiter, but some guy at NASA can just “eyeball” it? :dubious:
Not eyeball it. Computers are used too. I am talking about the best way to slingshot around other planets for long orbital space flights. That is a very complicated problem that computers still can’t do well on their own. They probably will be able to in the future but it will still require some rare human skills to make the decisions. There are some problems that are still too difficult for computers to solve but rare people can address them quickly and intuitively. That is the type of thing I am asking about.
I once worked with a man who could take anything apart, fix it, and put it back together again, blindfolded with his hands tied behind his back. (I’m exaggerating slightly about that last thing.) You can’t teach that either.
In egg production, the males are then killed, in the US usually by tossing them into a large grinder. So it is sort of like the pastry conveyor belt scene on I Love Lucy, except more soul-crushing.
Apparently the selective breeding for the best egg-laying females doesn’t produce the best meat-producing males. I donno for sure, I just remember reading about it years ago. Google chick grinding and you’ll get lots of stories about it, dominated by recent news that in a few years it will possibly be obsolete thanks to in-egg sex testing methods.
I don’t know much about poultry, but my impression is that putting multiple roosters in a confined space would just be a longer, messier version of that grinder.
Grammar can’t be taught–at least the total grammar drawn upon to speak one’s native language. There is just too much of it.
We like to maintain the conceit that we learn grammar from a textbook in grade school, but most of it we internalize from listening and reading outside of the classroom.
To a certain degree, this applies in a similar way to the full extent of grammar necessary to become fluent in another language, as well.
I have heard that some hatcheries sell, or even donate, their extra males to labs, schools, and raptor rehabilitation centers, or sell them very cheap for meat to anyone who wants them. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
Adjacent to what the OP is looking for, there is the concept of the “search image” (which is very difficult to google before because you’ll get lots of links about image searches.) In various fields such as paleontology, anthropology, archaeology, meteorite hunting, and other fields that involve lots of time walking around staring at the ground looking for small bits of specific things surrounded by mountains of small bits of nonspecific things, you gradually learn how to recognize things that 99.99% of other people would walk over without noticing.
It’s probably substantially impossible to teach adequate social skillz to people who lack that in varying degrees. You can try to teach it, and you can scratch the surface maybe, but that’s often about it. Normal social skillz that most people learn seem to be based upon some underlying hard-wired substrate, and people who are lacking in that just can’t get it.
Computers CAN and DO provide perfectly accurate potential trajectories for space flights. As well as for ICBM’s. And they have been able to do so for at least a couple decades now. Once a craft is in orbit or in space, there really are no more significant variables to deal with. Orbit is locked into by mere Newtonian and Keplerian physics. Space is a vacuum.
As far as people who allegedly “figure them out intuitively” this is an old myth. I had a client for physical therapy once who told me that when he was in the Army he banged his head one day, in fact was concussed, when he fell off of a tank. And when he came to he could immediately and inexplicably do this. And so his CO sent him to the Army’s Missile Command Center, or NORAD, or whatever the hell it is, and he worked there TDY for a couple months and wowed everybody. Then the “gift” disappeared and he was sent packing back to his regular command post.
Turns out the story was complete BS. His wife told me that he had a bunch of stories like that he makes up all the time. Oh…I suppose there might be the odd “Rainman” type of savant who could figure trajectories, but this is far too rare to say that “people” figure them intuitively, as if the skill is akin to being able to multiply three-digit numbers. LOL.
Anyway…as I said, there is no need nowadays for somebody who could do that, since we have those computers.
That said, back in the late 60s when NASA was preparing to fulfill JFK’s promise to get to the moon by the end of the decade, they DID have those room-sized second-generation ENIAC-type super computers to help them. But the old-timers at NASA did not trust them. So they always double checked everything the computer spit out with their old school trusty slide rules.
As far as unteachable skills? In my opinion some of them are…
Leadership: that is, the ability to not only effectively lead men but to have them instinctively respect you and be willing to put themselves into danger for you.
Learning new skills quickly: there is no way you can learn to learn quickly. Think about it! Oh…we can all learn things after enough practice, but the ability to learn them quickly is hardwired. There is no method of study that wil allow you to suddenly be able to, for the rest of your life, pick new skills up faster than the average.
And of course in the realm of athletics and sports…many if not most of those skills cannot be mastered by learning. By studying. One must have an inherent physical pre-dispostion. Bu genetics. It is not mere coincidence that so many sons of former great athletes also excel in their Dad’s sport.
I’m convinced that, if you’re musical (and not all people are), then you just need to find the right instrument.
I took piano as a child, and hated it. At least, it taught me to read music off the printed page. Then, I played trombone in the high school band. More fun than piano; but still, not quite comfortable.
Then, I was handed a friend’s daughter’s high school flute, just for fun. Almost by instinct, I figured out how to put it together, how to hold it, and I blew a note. More notes, and I tried to remember my music theory, but that didn’t work; I just fell back on–well, instinct–and ended up playing a scale within thirty minutes. As I understand things, many people take two weeks to simply get the flute to play a single note. Me, I was playing a scale in half-an-hour.
Having found “my” instrument, I studied classical flute for a number of years. Still, I found my greatest joy in playing with bar bands–if anybody needed a flute for “Moondance,” “Nights in White Satin,” “Daniel,” and so on, I was there.
To get back to the point of the OP, I was taught music, yes, and it was a drag–but once I discovered the flute, music was never a chore. It was fun! As such, I don’t think you can teach anybody music; rather, I think that anybody who is musically-inclined will find it. As long as they can find “their” instrument, that is.
From the ages of 5 to 15 I shot archery instinctively. There were a lot of archery clubs with outdoor courses with targets ranging from 15 to 100 yards. I never asked how far the target was and never use a sight. It was as natural as throwing a snowball at a tree. I won plenty of youth tournaments this way and shot a buck from a tree stand the same way. No way I could do it these days.
