Reality vs Mythology of Luck/Chance

Curiously the influence of chance/luck/serendipity is typically ignored/downplayed/ reported as anecdotal asides by academics. The implicit, if not explicit, argument seems to be that life is like a game in which every player takes on the same challenge - serving/ returning a tennis ball, hitting/ fielding a baseball, getting a hand of cards dealt off the deck, etc - under more or less the same conditions over and over again, with the result that over time the 'breaks' more or less even out. As a result while chance is always a component of exceptional achievement, it does not account for the differences among the players over time. Those who achieve the greatest results do so not because of luck - which is more or less equally distributed - but because they were better prepared (more skilled, intelligent, creative) to take advantage of the 'breaks' when they got them. For an early version of this argument see Cannon, 1940, re “the role of chance in discovery”; for a more recent version see Will, 1991, re “great athletes taking advantage of luck”.

Dean Keith Simonton’s recent book, Creativity in Science: Chance, Logic, Genius, and Zeitgeist (2004), has probably the most thorough and systematic account of this argument. He considers evidence regarding four major arguments that have been made in the research literature re how it is that scientific creativity comes about, in particular with regard to the sort of creativity that matters, eg Newton, Einstein, Darwin, etc. His conclusion is that “in the end, it should become clear that the scientific creativity that produced Principia must be a joint product of logic, chance, genius, and zeitgeist – with chance as the primus inter pares”. (p13)

While it may sound like his argument – just like the Arrival analysis presented on this website – credits chance as being the major player re who eventually ends up in the right place at the right time with the right combo of key characteristics to take on and solve key problems of a generation, Simonton is arguing nothing of the sort. He is in fact making the traditional lucky break argument re the role of chance in eminent achievements, only this time very systematically and with reference to scientific creativity.

If you look, for eg, at pp144 to 159 where he considers the role of Chance Processes in Scientific Discovery, the difference between Simonton’s argument and the Arrival analysis becomes clear. Here he overviews research re the role of chance, or random variations, on the level of creative problem solving re insight problems, creative production, computer problem solving, and group creativity – all of these involving the sort of creativity which would be central to scientific problem solving.

In contrast to Arrival, Simonton is not looking at chance factors which decide who gets the opportunities essential to develop themselves further along the road to being eventually in a position to take on and solve key scientific problems. He is looking in fact only at the end game itself, the actual role that chance variations in stimuli, ideas from colleagues, Archimedes taking a bath at the right time, etc, etc, happen to play in the great scientist coming up with the creative solution. In his words, re the role of chance events influencing the incubation process (sort of unconscious brainstorming in the scientist’s mind) which precedes that final ‘Eureka!!’ solution: (there are) “several attributes of highly creative scientists that would certainly affect the magnitude of this haphazard influence, For instance, the greater a scientist’s associative richness, the more associations that are elicited by any given stimulus, and hence the more impressive is the quantity and diversity of associations that might impinge on the intellect during the incubation period… in the final analysis the mind of a highly creative scientist will be a virtual cauldron of chance, a boiling infusion in which Poincaré’s ‘hooked atoms of Epicurus’ bounce and collide. From that bubbling broth emerge scientific discoveries of the first order.” (pp158-9)

Unlike Arrival the focus here is not on the role of chance influences in the development of the scientist. It is simply on the role of chance influences on the thinking process once the scientist in the midst of the end game itself. There is no consideration of how it was that Archimedes (Newton, Einstein, etc) happened to end up in that bath tub in the first place. At the heart of it Simonton’s argument is essentially the same as the traditional argument re the role of chance in great achievements (eg Cannon, 1940), ie those who achieve the greatest results do so not because of luck - which is more or less equally distributed - but because they were better prepared (had the “mind of a highly creative scientist”) to take advantage of the 'breaks' when they got them.

The problem with this argument re the role of luck/chance is simple. While it may apply to the sort of end game problem solving Simonton is focusing on, it has nothing to do with what really matters re attaining ‘greatness’, ie, the 20+ years of gaining access to the necessary developmental opportunities in the first place – the opportunities which allowed, eg, Archimedes to become “the greatest scientist and mathematician of his time” (p146).

When it comes to what really matters re attaining ‘greatness’, ie developmental opportunities, life is not like a game. The players don't all compete under more or less the same conditions over and over again. Right from the outset the cards are never dealt from the same deck and the players don't compete on the same playing field. The competition's ever rigged via the usual demographics of class, nationality, gender, race, urban/ rural, etc. Beyond this there is the luck of the draw re the likes of age cohort (Elder, 1974, eg, if Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Dr J, the Big O, etc etc, etc had been born in the 1920s, Larry Bird would be the greatest basketball player who ever lived); parents (eg who would ever have heard of Charlie Parker, Andy Warhol, or J Edgar Hoover, if it weren’t for momma?); sibling position (Stewart, 1992, eg, is there any chance Lincoln or FDR would have ever become President if they hadn't been only sons?); relatives (eg would we ever have heard of Newton or Einstein if it weren’t for their uncles?).

And beyond these once off deals, there’s the continual roll of the dice re the likes of parents’ jobs, homes, communities, schools, friends, teachers, coaches, accidents, illness, and deaths.

In life the outcome of each hand, or inning, or game, doesn't simply change the relative positions of the players prior to the next hand or inning or game. It often changes the very nature of the game itself. As a result a particular 'break' in the game of life, rather than averaging out across the players over time, can have massive consequences for the player involved - negative or positive - consequences whose effects extent far beyond the current hand, inning or game, consequences which can influence the person's development for years to come. Would we ever have heard of Van Gogh, Dali, or Elvis, not to mention JFK or Lenin, were it not for the death of a brother? Of Ali if a 12 year old Cassius Clay hadn't happened to have his bicycle stolen? Of Norma Jeane if the Army’s 'shutterbugs' hadn't happened to march into her factory one day in the fall of ‘44 for a patriotic shoot ?

Luck/chance/serendipity definitely play a part in achieving ‘greatness’, but we’re not talking bad hops or lucky breaks.

We’re talking lottery jackpots and Titantic tickets.

References cited above are available in Arrival. see Sources.