And Shannon himself might have been somewhat depressed by how much “smarter” his young self was. Richard Hamming:
“When you are famous it is hard to work on small problems. This is what did Shannon in. After information theory, what do you do for an encore? The great scientists often make this error. They fail to continue to plant the little acorns from which the mighty oak trees grow. They try to get the big thing right off. And that isn't the way things go. So that is another reason why you find that when you get early recognition it seems to sterilize you. In fact I will give you my favorite quotation of many years. The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, in my opinion, has ruined more good scientists than any institution has created, judged by what they did before they came and judged by what they did after. Not that they weren't good afterwards, but they were superb before they got there and were only good afterwards.”
> The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, in my opinion, has ruined more good scientists than any institution has created, judged by what they did before they came and judged by what they did after. Not that they weren't good afterwards, but they were superb before they got there and were only good afterwards.
Regression to the mean guarantees this effect regardless of what goes on at the Institute for Advanced Study.
Stupid comment. The quality of work of a very good scientist is not a random variable with an average being the same as the population average. Some scientists are actually better than average. Stop trying to sound smart.
Now you could argue that IAS scientists were actually average, and they were just lucky enough to hit upon quality results before they went to IAS. In this case your comment could logically make sense. If that is what you believe, I will just assume that you know nothing about the world of research in the past 40 or so years (at least not in an area where IAS is world's best, like theoretical physics) during which the IAS produced some of the world's best research, as opposed to just having the scientists with the world's biggest reputations.
You have soundly demonstrated that you don't understand regression to the mean. The quality of work of a very good scientist is not a random variable with the average being the same as the population average. It is, however, a random variable with an idiosyncratic average, and that is sufficient to observe regression to the (individual) mean.
The line of reasoning only attempts to make sense if you're talking about population mean. If you're talking about individual mean, it could still be a win to hire such individual of he's still above population average.
“When you are famous it is hard to work on small problems. This is what did Shannon in. After information theory, what do you do for an encore? The great scientists often make this error. They fail to continue to plant the little acorns from which the mighty oak trees grow. They try to get the big thing right off. And that isn't the way things go. So that is another reason why you find that when you get early recognition it seems to sterilize you. In fact I will give you my favorite quotation of many years. The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, in my opinion, has ruined more good scientists than any institution has created, judged by what they did before they came and judged by what they did after. Not that they weren't good afterwards, but they were superb before they got there and were only good afterwards.”