It didn't happen by accident, but rather because he "(looks) at both visible light and infrared light and based on how different materials absorb light, (he) can compare that with the laboratory data and make some inference about what kind of materials are present.", and before that because he learned the required stuff to end up doing this.
Just because someone realizes that the expected value of their purchase is negative to being almost the same as the cost, doesn't mean that they can't make the purchase.
Whether it makes sense depends on their utility function.
But luck does play a bigger role than most would think as one can work as hard as possible and not be lucky enough to succeed. It's hard to define luck though so it might be highly subjective.
Agree. You can have all the skills in the world, but sometimes you need fate (or whatever you want to call it) to fall in your favour.
A small example, not related to this, but when I started DJing about 15 years ago, I put on a party that was a warm-up party for a bigger night. I told John Digweed (who was running the bigger party) about it. John Digweed was one of the worlds biggest DJs at that point, and as 'luck' would have it he was releasing a new mix CD. So the world's music press was there to interview him.
He came down to my party with the world's press and suddenly my first ever party was in magazines across the globe. I started getting offers of gigs all over the world after that. There were much better DJs around (I was pretty average back then), but I'd had the stroke of luck which ended up in a pretty successful 'career' (I put it in quotes because I always treated it as a hobby, but by most people's measurements it was pretty successful).
Knowledge and skill is obviously important, but luck definitely plays a role, especially when it comes to areas of life that very few succeed in.
"You make your own luck." There were a sequence of events that lead to you getting the opportunity to be in the right place at the right time.
Random luck happens for sure, but how did you get to put on a warm-up for one of the biggest DJs in the world? I'd guess because of some conscious work you did, not because he picked a phone number in the book at random.
You told him about your party after getting the gig. He probably wouldn't have gone if you had not. That kind of networking and effort is a skill just as much as selecting the right music.
I did it independently in a different venue around the corner from the main night. I saw it as a courtesy to tell him what I was doing, and the rest is history. Clearly I had to spend time learning how to DJ, buying the right records, promoting it, etc. So there was definitely an aspect of making my own luck, but that is also what many wannabe DJs do without success.
Meh. This is just a silly semantics game. I think it's very wise and empathetic to just accept that sometimes you just get lucky, instead of trying to coop credit for it by saying "well I put the effort to be there to receive that luck in the first place!".
People like to just believe that brilliance is only possible at random, and nothing they can do will help, unless they get lucky.
On the other hand, scientists (especially observational scientists) know that there's many many many brilliant scientists in the world, and which one of us actually happens to do the right kind of scan on the right data at the right time can be down to pure, "dumb" luck.
This is more/less the Dunning-Kruger [1] effect in action. From the student's perspective, all of his knowledge is "obvious common sense that everyone has" (this is his error about others).
Sorry, but over-citation of the Dunning-Kruger effect is a pet peeve of mine.
People seem to think that the Dunning-Kruger effect means "smart people think they're dumb and dumb people think they're smart!" but I don't think that's very accurate.
What they actually found was that lower-skilled people thought their skill level was somewhat higher, and higher-skilled people thought their skill level was a little lower, but not to the point where their relative perceived skill levels inverted. At no point along the skill curve did people incorrectly perceive themselves to be higher or lower in skill level in comparison others who were actually higher or lower in skill. The perceived skill curve was a little less steep than it should have been, that's all.
I don't disagree with anything you said. I think the curse of knowledge and Dunning-Kruger describe the same effect (one in a semi-quantitative way and one in a philosophical way).
Comments
It didn't happen by accident, but rather because he "(looks) at both visible light and infrared light and based on how different materials absorb light, (he) can compare that with the laboratory data and make some inference about what kind of materials are present.", and before that because he learned the required stuff to end up doing this.
This is the kind of thing that ends up being just another 'don't have to try too hard to succeed' story. It's like Einstein being bad at math.
People like to just believe that brilliance is only possible at random, and nothing they can do will help, unless they get lucky.
It's the same reason the lottery still exists.
Lottery exists because for some people the thought of being rich is more enticing than the reality of owning an extra buck.
The lottery still exists because there are a lot of people who are bad at statistics.
I'm not sure that that is why.
Just because someone realizes that the expected value of their purchase is negative to being almost the same as the cost, doesn't mean that they can't make the purchase.
Whether it makes sense depends on their utility function.
But luck does play a bigger role than most would think as one can work as hard as possible and not be lucky enough to succeed. It's hard to define luck though so it might be highly subjective.
Agree. You can have all the skills in the world, but sometimes you need fate (or whatever you want to call it) to fall in your favour.
A small example, not related to this, but when I started DJing about 15 years ago, I put on a party that was a warm-up party for a bigger night. I told John Digweed (who was running the bigger party) about it. John Digweed was one of the worlds biggest DJs at that point, and as 'luck' would have it he was releasing a new mix CD. So the world's music press was there to interview him.
He came down to my party with the world's press and suddenly my first ever party was in magazines across the globe. I started getting offers of gigs all over the world after that. There were much better DJs around (I was pretty average back then), but I'd had the stroke of luck which ended up in a pretty successful 'career' (I put it in quotes because I always treated it as a hobby, but by most people's measurements it was pretty successful).
Knowledge and skill is obviously important, but luck definitely plays a role, especially when it comes to areas of life that very few succeed in.
"You make your own luck." There were a sequence of events that lead to you getting the opportunity to be in the right place at the right time.
Random luck happens for sure, but how did you get to put on a warm-up for one of the biggest DJs in the world? I'd guess because of some conscious work you did, not because he picked a phone number in the book at random.
You told him about your party after getting the gig. He probably wouldn't have gone if you had not. That kind of networking and effort is a skill just as much as selecting the right music.
I did it independently in a different venue around the corner from the main night. I saw it as a courtesy to tell him what I was doing, and the rest is history. Clearly I had to spend time learning how to DJ, buying the right records, promoting it, etc. So there was definitely an aspect of making my own luck, but that is also what many wannabe DJs do without success.
Meh. This is just a silly semantics game. I think it's very wise and empathetic to just accept that sometimes you just get lucky, instead of trying to coop credit for it by saying "well I put the effort to be there to receive that luck in the first place!".
On the other hand, scientists (especially observational scientists) know that there's many many many brilliant scientists in the world, and which one of us actually happens to do the right kind of scan on the right data at the right time can be down to pure, "dumb" luck.
This is more/less the Dunning-Kruger [1] effect in action. From the student's perspective, all of his knowledge is "obvious common sense that everyone has" (this is his error about others).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
Sorry, but over-citation of the Dunning-Kruger effect is a pet peeve of mine.
People seem to think that the Dunning-Kruger effect means "smart people think they're dumb and dumb people think they're smart!" but I don't think that's very accurate.
What they actually found was that lower-skilled people thought their skill level was somewhat higher, and higher-skilled people thought their skill level was a little lower, but not to the point where their relative perceived skill levels inverted. At no point along the skill curve did people incorrectly perceive themselves to be higher or lower in skill level in comparison others who were actually higher or lower in skill. The perceived skill curve was a little less steep than it should have been, that's all.
I think a more appropriate cognitive bias would be the curse of knowledge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_knowledge
I don't disagree with anything you said. I think the curse of knowledge and Dunning-Kruger describe the same effect (one in a semi-quantitative way and one in a philosophical way).
Yea I could see that, I guess. Interesting way of thinking about it.