If the difference in success was due to a difference in skill, I’d expect people who have previously been successful scientists to be reliably also successful in other areas, say as entrepreneurs. I don’t see that being the case, so I suspect the difference in success is not so much due to a difference in skill.
My intuitive theory of scientific success involves more luck, and I think of it as akin to mining. An individual researcher gets to pick a mountain to dig into, and of course the mountain of computational neuroscience can be reasonably suspected to yield more interesting ore than the mountain of dentistry. Inside the field, the researcher may try to attack a particular side of the mountain, or sub-field. But after that, the actual find of something interesting—a new and relevant phenomenon, a new and powerful explanation—has a lot to do with conscientiousness (which simply makes them “dig” a lot) and luck. Of course success has its own effects, from greater scrutiny on future work to improved communication with esteemed colleagues to the halo effect.
In that metaphor, what Einstein, Feynman and others did was possibly more like underground mining, chasing an interesting vein to wherever it led, while modern incrementally published mass research is more like surface mining—much slower, involving a lot more earth/paper, much less romantic, but ultimately more exhaustive.
If the difference in success was due to a difference in skill, I’d expect people who have previously been successful scientists to be reliably also successful in other areas, say as entrepreneurs. I don’t see that being the case, so I suspect the difference in success is not so much due to a difference in skill.
Only if being a scientist and entrepreneur takes the same skills.
Sorry for the confusion. You were talking about merely “being a scientist”, which obviously does require a skillset, so I responded to that.
In the post you replied to, I was talking about the difference between “successful scientists” who have actually made a significant scientific achievement, and other scientists, who I think will often have comparable skillsets. That difference is what I’m trying to explain. I do not think “science is mainly luck”.
If there’s a skill that distinguishes successful scientists from scientists that aren’t it’s not clear that the same skill also makes successful entrepreneurs.
As a result you can assume that the skill doesn’t exist just because scientific success doesn’t transfer to reliable success as an entrepreneur.
Generally, the top 10% of the most prolific elite can be credited with around 50% of all contributions, whereas the bottom 50% of the least productive workers can claim only 15% of the total work, and the most productive contributor is usually about 100 times more prolific than the least (Dennis, 1954b, 1955; also see Lotka, 1926; Price, 1963, chap. 2). Now from a purely logical perspective, there are three distinct ways of achieving an impressive lifetime output that enables a creator to dominate an artistic or scientific enterprise. First, the individual may exhibit exceptional precocity, beginning contributions at an uncommonly early age. Second, the individual may attain a notable lifetime total by producing until quite late in life, and thereby display productive longevity. Third, the individual may boast phenomenal output rates throughout a career, without regard to the career’s onset and termination. These three components are mathematically distinct and so may have almost any arbitrary correlation whatsoever with each other, whether positive, negative, or zero, without altering their respective contributions to total productivity. In precise terms, it is clear that O = R(L—P), where O is lifetime output, R is the mean rate of output throughout the career, L is the age at which the career ended (longevity), and P is the age at which the career began (precocity). The correlations among these three variables may adopt a wide range of arbitrary values without violating this identity. For example, the difference L—P, which defines the length of a career, may be more or less constant, mandating that lifetime output results largely from the average output rate R, given that those who begin earlier, end earlier, and those who begin later, end later. Or output rates may be more or less constant, forcing the final score to be a function solely of precocity and longevity, either singly or in conjunction. In short, R, L, and P, or output rate, longevity, and precocity, comprise largely orthogonal components of O, the gauge of total contributions.
When we turn to actual empirical data, we can observe two points. First, as might be expected, precocity, longevity, and output rate are each strongly associated with final lifetime output, that is, those who generate the most contributions at the end of a career also tend to have begun their careers at earlier ages, ended their careers at later ages, and produced at extraordinary rates throughout their careers (e.g., Albert, 1975; Blackburn et al., 1978; Bloom, 1963; Clemente, 1973; S. Cole, 1979; Richard A. Davis, 1987; Dennis, 1954a, 1954b; Helson & Crutchfield, 1970; Lehman, 1953a; Over, 1982a, 1982b; Raskin, 1936; Roe, 1965, 1972a, 1972b; Segal, Busse, & Mansfield, 1980; R. J. Simon, 1974; Simonton, 1977c; Zhao & Jiang, 1986). Second, these three components are conspicuously linked with each other: Those who are precocious also tend to display longevity, and both precocity and longevity are positively associated with high output rates per age unit (Blackburn et al., 1978; Dennis, 1954a, 1954b, 1956b; Horner et al., 1986; Lehman, 1953a, 1958; Lyons, 1968; Roe, 1952; Simonton, 1977c; Zuckerman, 1977).
If the difference in success was due to a difference in skill, I’d expect people who have previously been successful scientists to be reliably also successful in other areas, say as entrepreneurs. I don’t see that being the case, so I suspect the difference in success is not so much due to a difference in skill.
I’d expect a better test would be to see if successful scientist in one field tends to stay successful when they move to a different field. In my understanding they often do.
Now that you acknowledge that, I should acknowledge that my understanding did not come from any hard evidence, but rather from an accumulated intuition after hearing many stories of successful scientists. This understanding can certainly turn out to be false.
Now that you acknowledge that, I should acknowledge that my understanding did not come from any hard evidence, but rather from an accumulated intuition after hearing many stories of successful scientists. This understanding can certainly turn out to be false.
The first lab I ever worked in at NHGRI had a saying: “We do the ‘re’ in research”.
I can understand how when you are bringing together unified mathematical ideas based on centuries of other people’s data, if you have the right insight you can figure some major things out quickly. But when dealing with complicated real-world systems rather than abstract logical structures you have to keep pumping. Sometimes you get lucky or you have the correct thought as to what is interesting and where to keep pushing, sometimes you need to keep pushing and pushing away.
If the difference in success was due to a difference in skill, I’d expect people who have previously been successful scientists to be reliably also successful in other areas, say as entrepreneurs. I don’t see that being the case, so I suspect the difference in success is not so much due to a difference in skill.
My intuitive theory of scientific success involves more luck, and I think of it as akin to mining. An individual researcher gets to pick a mountain to dig into, and of course the mountain of computational neuroscience can be reasonably suspected to yield more interesting ore than the mountain of dentistry. Inside the field, the researcher may try to attack a particular side of the mountain, or sub-field. But after that, the actual find of something interesting—a new and relevant phenomenon, a new and powerful explanation—has a lot to do with conscientiousness (which simply makes them “dig” a lot) and luck. Of course success has its own effects, from greater scrutiny on future work to improved communication with esteemed colleagues to the halo effect.
In that metaphor, what Einstein, Feynman and others did was possibly more like underground mining, chasing an interesting vein to wherever it led, while modern incrementally published mass research is more like surface mining—much slower, involving a lot more earth/paper, much less romantic, but ultimately more exhaustive.
Only if being a scientist and entrepreneur takes the same skills.
Only if the skillsets required for success overlap to a significant degree. I think they do, but of course I haven’t tried entrepreneurship myself.
I think it’s hard to claim at the same time that there are overlapping skillsets and that science is mainly luck instead of skill.
Sorry for the confusion. You were talking about merely “being a scientist”, which obviously does require a skillset, so I responded to that.
In the post you replied to, I was talking about the difference between “successful scientists” who have actually made a significant scientific achievement, and other scientists, who I think will often have comparable skillsets. That difference is what I’m trying to explain. I do not think “science is mainly luck”.
If there’s a skill that distinguishes successful scientists from scientists that aren’t it’s not clear that the same skill also makes successful entrepreneurs.
As a result you can assume that the skill doesn’t exist just because scientific success doesn’t transfer to reliable success as an entrepreneur.
You mean “As a result you can’t assume”?
Yes.
At least researchers tend to display relatively consistent output within a field: http://resources.emartin.net/blog/docs/AgeAchievement.pdf
Why are you talking about “rate”? Is that like measuring programmer productivity in lines of code?
Thanks for providing me with some backing for what I said in the OP concerning the great differences in productivity between different researchers.
I’d expect a better test would be to see if successful scientist in one field tends to stay successful when they move to a different field. In my understanding they often do.
I agree that would be a better test.
Now that you acknowledge that, I should acknowledge that my understanding did not come from any hard evidence, but rather from an accumulated intuition after hearing many stories of successful scientists. This understanding can certainly turn out to be false.
Now that you acknowledge that, I should acknowledge that my understanding did not come from any hard evidence, but rather from an accumulated intuition after hearing many stories of successful scientists. This understanding can certainly turn out to be false.
Perhaps because those that wouldn’t be successful elsewhere accurately assess that they should never move.
The first lab I ever worked in at NHGRI had a saying: “We do the ‘re’ in research”.
I can understand how when you are bringing together unified mathematical ideas based on centuries of other people’s data, if you have the right insight you can figure some major things out quickly. But when dealing with complicated real-world systems rather than abstract logical structures you have to keep pumping. Sometimes you get lucky or you have the correct thought as to what is interesting and where to keep pushing, sometimes you need to keep pushing and pushing away.