Not at all. Among the wealth of capabilities our brains have, some stand out from others. On occasion, someone is raised to maximize the one great capability that that person is born with. This, in my view, is how we get people with "natural" talents, such a a Mozart (music), Leonardo (curiosity, art and science), or Einstein (conceptualization).

Exactly.
It is said that along with his inborn talent, Franz Liszt ha long fingers and a very wide hand spread enabling him to perform tricky passages others found almost impossible to master. He was the rock star of his day. Ugly as sin, though.

As a part of my philosophy minor as an undergraduate in the late 50s I took a course in Logic which included syllogisms and logical fallacies. These skills are not innate!

That is my position as well. I wanted to hear what others thoughts were so I could improve my knowledge on the subject.

A significant factor in developing a logic-seeking approach to life is inherent emotional disposition. I was a quiet, thoughtful child (which usually meant I was more creative in the trouble I got into), and if what my parents told me made sense, I followed their guidance. My brother, on the other hand, was emotional and volatile, challenging seemingly everything he was told, and remains irrational to this day. My father often jokingly blamed me for suckering him into wanting another child, as I was too easy to rear. I was well and thoughtfully nurtured, but my genetic nature certainly helped my development as a rational being.

I think there are differing factors in play for each person. For me, I had a job where I did service work. I got stuck working graveyard and was on my own to be the service tech for the company until I could move up to a day shift. I was with the company for less than a year, and although I knew the basics of my job, I would have to call my boss for technical help from time to time. After waking up my bosses a few times, and realizing that while they were willing to help me, they weren't too keen on me calling them at 2 am to fix some issues. I made a conscious effort to do whatever I could NOT to call them and started relying on my own instincts and abilities. Before I knew it, it had been a month before I'd have to call... then 2 months... etc. The next thing I know, I'm off of days and start getting sent on the out of town runs because I'm known as the person who can figure things out. As I realized that it was MY choice to be successful or not, I think it caused my self confidence to grow.

As with anything, it starts with a belief in yourself. Being able to say "I can make it work", gets the ball rolling.

Are you referring more to, perhaps, goal-seeking in individuals instead of ability to reason?

Goal-seeking could be considered a drive, instinct or even need in some individuals. It also serves as an incentive to use such mental abilities as reason.

The science is pretty clear that it is both nature and nurture - genetics and education/practice. All the education/practice in the world will turn a fish into a logical rational animal. However, almost even the most mentally challenged humans can improve their ability to think rationally with practice.

in order to use reason you most have knowledge as in education. it is not an inherently acquired ability.
athletes must practice to become proficient at their sport

Talent is not knowledge. Tabula raza says nothing about your talent (Ability to think), it only states that you have no innate knowledge when you are born.

On a purely scientific bases this is not quite true. Babies for instance have the reflex to suckle. However, it is true for any high level knowledge.

So for clarity, you believe it is possible for some people to be born with some ability to think?

Personal discipline is the key. I know several very smart individuals who decided that they were better than everyone and everything else. They dropped out of school and are now stuck in dead-end jobs and still live in their parents basements. Their arrogance became their personal foils. They refused to temper their self-assessments and recognize that talents are important, but application moreso.

I also know a couple of basketball players who weren't the most gifted athletically, yet went on to excel in college (and beyond) because of hard work.

Mental gymnastics are no different than physical gymnastics - and I might even venture harder in fact. It takes personal discipline over a long period of time to gain control over one's passions and emotions. It is certainly made easier by appropriate role models and mentors who can speed the learning process.

Now here's where I disagree with A.R. All people are not born "tabula raza". Some are born with more inate talent than others and as a result find it easier to accomplish certain things than most people would. However, that doesn't mean that a person can't achieve as much or more than the gifted person. A perfect example would be Mozart and Beethoven, Mozart was born gifted. Music flowed from him like water from a well from an underground sea. Beethoven had to work harder. Evidence of this is the sketches for the 5th symphony where the famous four note phrase was worked over and over until he got it just so. Yet most critics agreed that Beethoven was the equal or even the superior to Mozart. To make a long story longer, dedication and hard work can often equal and even surpass that of the gifted person.

So for clarity are you saying there is no natural ability to think? Simply a product of the environment?

If tempted to do something that doesn't make sense, just because it feels better, one needs to
focus on what the rational thing would be. Often
that is no fun; I can't say that I have always done
it. (Particularly on a cold morning when I don't want to get up right away, but I know it has to
be done). But if you focus your mind on having
to get to work, or to that appointment, or that
job application opportunity, you may find your-
self, feeling as if it is against your will but your
body is somehow moving, getting out of bed and
getting started. And, as others are saying, prac-
tice makes it easier.

Nice to hear there are some 20 somethings that think. Most that I know are too busy having fun. We need more of you.

This is something my few objectivist-minded friends (I'm in my mid-20s) and I often wonder about. There are a few of us who are perfectly content to sit around for hours and debate the minutiae of philosophical questions and our other friends want nothing to do with us. I honestly think the difference comes down to a thirst for knowledge. My rationalist friends and I read everything because we genuinely want to know about different rationales. And the more you're exposed to it and the more you recognize different rhetorical strategies, the more you automatically use them in conversation. I've noticed this difference in my college classes and in the quality of work I saw when I worked for my college newspaper. It's an initial act of volition to think, and then it gets easier the more exposure you have.

http://Despair.com says that "When you earnestly believe you can compensate for a lack of skill by doubling your efforts, there's no end to what you can't do.

That said, the ability to use reason and logic starts with childhood perception. If a child grows up happy and healthy, his perceptions and views of the world follow reality. If not, those realities are distorted and all manner of rationalizations follow to make them "psycho-logical."

One only need think of Obama, who was a love child, first abandoned by his father, then schlepped around the world to live in different cultures before being abandoned to his perceived racist grandparents. Confused and angry, Obama was then an easy mark for Frank Marshall Davis and, later, Marxist professors to convince him that his unhappiness was the fault of the white, colonialist West, so much so that he changed his very name.

Here's an Objectivist take on it - <5 minutes video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whQl_...

People act either on blind emotion like animals , OR. they observe what's going on and regulate what they do in response to their goals and the facts of reality

Professor Edward de Bono, in his book "de Bono’s Thinking Course," has an excellent example of intelligence and efficient thinking. He says:

The car may have a powerful engine, a smooth gear box and wonderful suspension. But the skill of the driver is something different.

Indeed, the very power of the car may place extra demands upon that skill. In no way does the power of the car ensure the skill of the driver. In the analogy the engineering of the car corresponds to the innate intelligence and the driving skill of the driver corresponds to the operating skill we call thinking.

It is also often the case that a more humble car has a better driver. Driving skill can also be learned and practiced and improved.

Beyond the basics, thinking is a learned skill, like driving or anything else.

So do you think an athlete that is the best of the best is born with an ability that practice makes perfect or is it the teaching & practice that makes the natural athlete? What I've been thinking about is if some people are born with a better ability to think/reason and with practice become the best of the best at it or if it is all taught or learned as a child develops. Makes sense??

I think motivation and perception has a lot to do with reason. I recently watched the first two seasons of Reign. The show was highly overdramatic and I oftentimes found myself screaming "you idiot" and other choice words at the TV. But the more I thought about it the more I realized it was the way things were. They did not know any better. I think our society suffers from a lot of "doing things the way they've always been" "the same old thing", and " business as usual " mentality. Let's face it in just the last 20 years life has changed so drastically that even in an all English speaking neighborhood there are still very heavy communication barriers. Life has changed too much to not have everyone on the same page and I believe those barriers are what is causing a lot of the media provoked lack of reason. So many people rely on media for their education, because let's face it public education has become nothing more than brain washing and propaganda. They have to learn somewhere, mom and Dad are too busy or don't care, and the only place anyone will listen is on the internet, and they are lead by it and Tv. It is terrifying to think where elderly people are going to end up when this generations kids grow up?

Hello edweaver,

'Reason is the faculty that identifies and integrates the material provided by man's senses. It is a faculty that man has to exercise by choice. Thinking is not an automatic function. In any hour and issue of his life, man is free to think or to evade that effort. thinking requires a state of full, or focused awareness. The act of focusing one's consciousness is volitional. Man can focus his mind to a full, active, purposely directed awareness of reality---or he can unfocus it and let himself drift in a semiconscious daze, merely reacting to any chance stimulus of the immediate moment, at the mercy of his undirected sensory-perceptual mechanism and of any random, associational connections it might happen to make." TVOS, pg.22

It is true that people have different aptitudes in this regard, but it is also true that many are coddled and not pressed to think for themselves. In our present sociopolitical climate we are encouraged not to teach one to fish, but to give him fish. It is the same when it comes to thinking, when one would rather have you provide the answer to them rather than have you tell them to look it up or do their own research. It is Altruism being played upon. This is not how one learns to reason and use logic on their own. Our society has deemed it important to insure no one is left behind even if it means thinking for others. ...participation awards are a manifestation of this mentality. Nature would cull the mentally indolent or force them to think in order to survive, but governments are constantly trying to bring equality not by forcing the indolent to pull their weight, but for the producers to carry more. This is of course economic suicide as the nation is less productive and the productive become resentful of the ever-growing burdens; while the "needy" grow ever more resentful of the successful as they are increasingly blinded by their indoctrination. It is an indoctrination of class warfare that destroys the human will. Incentives matter. When one is guaranteed a basic standard of living by government, even if at the expense of others many will find that sufficient incentive to choose sloth. To think, or not to think, that is the question/choice.

In short, to answer your question: My opinion is that it is both. We may not be able to do much about one's nature at birth, but we can enhance or undermine one's future by what we do, or do not teach. If you are not taught to think for yourself you are a good follower and compliant serf... a parrot. This is no doubt attractive to our elitist and statist politicos.
Respectfully,
O.A.

It is learned and made better by practice like most everything else. In particular no matter how smart you are or how good at abstract reasoning that is not remotely enough to get rational ethics down to your core and to build the kind of life you are proud of.