In my experience, humans aren’t that good at “tracking the flight of a baseball, or the expected outcome of throwing a football” intuitively.
In baseball for instance, it’s common for outfielders to misjudge the flight of a ball coming in their general direction if they base their judgement solely off the ball’s trajectory. Fielders are taught to get aquainted with the different sounds the ball makes when it hits the bat in order to better judge the initial velocity of the ball. They are also taught to error on the side of caution—taking a step or two back for instance, when a ball is hit their way and they are unsure of the trajectory, so as not to let the ball get behind them and cause a signifcantly bad result. You, of course, have some intuition about how to catch a baseball or throw a football...but you learn the techniques to do it at an optimized level.
There are some people who seem to have a more acute intuitive understanding of physics in action on the sports field. (i.e. natural born talents) But I think it is more common (ar at least as common) that elite players have aquired a keen sense of actions that yield a maximized result through repetition and focused practice.
In my experience, humans aren’t that good at “tracking the flight of a baseball, or the expected outcome of throwing a football” intuitively.
In baseball for instance, it’s common for outfielders to misjudge the flight of a ball coming in their general direction if they base their judgement solely off the ball’s trajectory. Fielders are taught to get aquainted with the different sounds the ball makes when it hits the bat in order to better judge the initial velocity of the ball. They are also taught to error on the side of caution—taking a step or two back for instance, when a ball is hit their way and they are unsure of the trajectory, so as not to let the ball get behind them and cause a signifcantly bad result. You, of course, have some intuition about how to catch a baseball or throw a football...but you learn the techniques to do it at an optimized level.
There are some people who seem to have a more acute intuitive understanding of physics in action on the sports field. (i.e. natural born talents) But I think it is more common (ar at least as common) that elite players have aquired a keen sense of actions that yield a maximized result through repetition and focused practice.
Sports are designed to be hard but possible. That’s what makes them interesting.
Perhaps we should be looking at more ordinary skills, like walking—or, for people with some familiarity with it, walking over rough terrain.