To some extent, yes.. When I'm in a lecture hall in college & the professor is talking about theoretical physics, I feel pretty stupid & I'm confused & don't really understand what's going on. So, yes, I guess I do.
Really illuminating paper here! I appreciate you sharing this. Here's what I think - innate ability is overvalued, everyone! If you hone your skills over time you will seem smarter than you are & you lose some of your shyness & inhibitions w.r.t. asserting yourself & expressing your opinion. My top grades were a 2200 on my SAT's, 31 on my ACT's, & I was an honors student in college. That being said, I don't think that correlates with intelligence. That just correlates with testing well. Isaac Newton made major contributions to his STEM career in science, and he DID have a lot of innate ability but he also worked at it, which I like. I don't feel that Warren Buffet has a lot of ability, yet he uses the math skills he has to sell stocks profitably. The common character trait of these two examples is that they work at their skills - no one gets a free ride.
Productivity matters more than ability. When I first sold the product Keysaver (1) I was embarrassed about becoming a 'career-driven adult' & being less academic, but I had to learn how to make a face & make that transition into adulthood & out of the school lifestyle. Nobody is outside of this paradigm.
I'll make this analogy:
When you're single, you might think you're great looking but if no one likes you there's no PROOF of that. When you have a thing with someone sexy, that's validation that you yourself are reasonably attractive & normal enough.
Innate ability or talent is great but there's no PROOF that it's great. When I try to prove that ability, that's validation that I'm reasonably smart & intelligent enough to work for a living.
(1) https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=appinventor.ai_ak_Lars.Keysaver
great article, PhilGoetz! There is a similar, but much simpler situation that occurs when I try to play chords on a guitar to sing a song over a simple groove on a classical guitar in order to impress my girlfriend. It's easy for me to learn the first few chords but difficult to learn complicated songs with many layers to them.
Speaking from a similar point of view here, I MUST say that this is an incredibly well-documented essay. Well done!