Hirsch Argument Atlas
Evidence-source registry, machine-normalized 2026-08-24. Identity and independence flag are unreviewed; occurrence→claim links were machine-relinked. ← Back to the registry
S0072 · ericsson_pool_2016_peak · registry identity

Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise

Ericsson · 2016
testimony independent4 occurrences across 3 books · load 12
Bears on

Canonical propositions this source was matched as evidence for.

P01 — There is no general reading-comprehension skill — nor a general critical-thinking skill — that operates independently of knowledge of the…
P03 — Intellectual skill and expertise are domain-specific and transfer poorly across domains; so-called higher-order abilities are relevant kn…
How Hirsch uses it

Every occurrence, grouped by book and chapter, with the claim it was linked to support and (where the extraction regenerated one) the underlying warrant.

2016 · Why Knowledge Matters
Scientific claim from expertise researchers stating that general skills do not exist.
direct There is no such thing as developing a general, content-independent skill.
ch epilogue · expert_testimony · wkm:chepilogue_E3
Warrant (explicit): Scientific consensus regarding the domain-specificity of human expertise invalidates the pedagogical goal of teaching general-purpose thinking skills.
could fail ifThe absence of 'general skills' in experts does not prove that general cognitive strategies cannot be taught to novices to improve their baseline performance across tasks.
Asserts that developing a general skill is a scientific impossibility.
direct A single, overarching general skill does not exist.
ch prologue · expert_testimony · wkm:chprologue_E22
Warrant (implicit): Expert consensus in cognitive science regarding the domain-specific nature of expertise is sufficient to invalidate pedagogical theories based on general-purpose mental faculties.
could fail ifThe definition of 'skill' in cognitive science (as a cognitive architecture) may differ fundamentally from the pedagogical definition (as a transferable heuristic), rendering the scientific impossibility irrelevant to classroom practice.
2022 · American Ethnicity
Anders Ericsson's research on expert performance, which concludes that skills like memory or athleticism are always specific to a domain, not general.
related Psychological research has disproven the existence of a reliable general expertise of 'scientific thinking'.
ch 9 · expert_testimony · ae:ch9_E6
2024 · The Ratchet Effect
The findings on the domain specificity of human expertise, specifically that general skills like 'memory' or 'athleticism' do not exist in isolation from specific training tasks.
direct Human expertise is domain-specific rather than general.
ch 2 · empirical_study · re:ch2_E1
Warrant (explicit): Experimental findings demonstrating that high performance in specific cognitive tasks (like memory) does not transfer to unrelated tasks justify the conclusion that human intelligence is a collection of specific domain expertises rather than a single general faculty.
could fail ifNeuroplasticity or 'g' factor theories may show that training in certain complex domains (like music or mathematics) enhances executive functions that provide a general cognitive advantage across domains.
Endnote numbers seen

Raw book:chapter:endnote references collected during endnote backfill.

ae:9:137ae:9:138wkm:epilogue:4wkm:prologue:38
Raw source_reference strings seen

As they appeared before normalization/consolidation into this source identity.

  • Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool, Peak: Secrets from New Science of Expertise
  • Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool, Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise (2016)
  • Anders Ericsson and Robert Poole, Peak (2016)
  • Ericsson, Anders and Pool, Robert (2016). Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise.