It doesn't 'beat' smarts, it's just different.

What most people call being 'smart' means you're a fast learner and/or are good at abstract thinking.

Of course someone with experience knows how to do something better than you if you have no experience, but if you're left to figure things out for yourself you might work out a more efficient way to do things faster than the experienced person did.

If you're doing a repetitive task, being smart isn't that important and so experience usually trumps being smart. If you're doing a dynamic task where you face new problems, then pure repetition doesn't help as much because each problem is different.

The very definition of being good at a thing means, being able to that specific thing well. You could learn something fast, but really getting at good that will demand tons of practice before it begins to appear as sleight of hand.

>>If you're doing a dynamic task where you face new problems, then pure repetition doesn't help as much because each problem is different.

Each heart surgery is different, yet in many ways similar. Practice matters a lot in these cases. Your initial enthusiasm might not even matter in these cases.

I never discounted practice, and yes to be "really good" (Whatever your definition of that is) at something takes a lot of practice regardless of how smart you are.

I also specifically said _pure_ repetition because I know that repetition is important for all skills, but for more complex skills you need to synthesize your past experience and extrapolate to future experiences (I.e abstract thinking). This is a lot more involved than pure repetition.