in aggregate, i would say that everything in this study is on point. but there is a caveat—in aggregate. just as there is human variation in size, strength, appearance, so is there variation in intelligence, endurance and work ethic. try as i might, i will never be able to function well deprived of sleep, but my dad is a different story (he's 60, been through chemo, has migraines all the time and can still work longer than me—it's quite infuriating). the point is that all statistical methods which discount outliers, and productivity in aggregate would adhere to the gaussian bell curve†—the so-called normal distribution which by definition discounts outliers, will not show the work of the exceptional ones, whether they exist or not. given my own experience with my old man, i would say
1) it depends on the work
2) it depends on the type of production
3) it depends on the person
4) it depends on the time scale
i believe that those who think they are superhuman are mostly wrong, but some of them are right. wasn't it kahneman and tversky who measured confidence and for people over-estimated their skills? i'm pretty sure 95% of swedes believe that they are better than average in sweden (read taleb's the black swan#). and then there is the Dunning-Kruger effect^ which describes the underestimation of skills by the skilled and the overestimation of skills by the unskilled, the n00bs as it were. so i consider self-selection specious. i want to see a measure of the guys who didn't toot their own horn, or more appropriately, those recognized by their peers as being exceptional.
† production on long time scales does not fit to the bell curve because it can be 'bumpy', but normalized for innovation it should
1) it depends on the work 2) it depends on the type of production 3) it depends on the person 4) it depends on the time scale
i believe that those who think they are superhuman are mostly wrong, but some of them are right. wasn't it kahneman and tversky who measured confidence and for people over-estimated their skills? i'm pretty sure 95% of swedes believe that they are better than average in sweden (read taleb's the black swan#). and then there is the Dunning-Kruger effect^ which describes the underestimation of skills by the skilled and the overestimation of skills by the unskilled, the n00bs as it were. so i consider self-selection specious. i want to see a measure of the guys who didn't toot their own horn, or more appropriately, those recognized by their peers as being exceptional.
† production on long time scales does not fit to the bell curve because it can be 'bumpy', but normalized for innovation it should
# http://www.amazon.com/Black-Swan-Impact-Highly-Improbable/dp...
^ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect