
The Correlation Between Arts and Crafts and a Nobel Prize - ryan_j_naughton
http://priceonomics.com/the-correlation-between-arts-and-crafts-and-a/
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Xcelerate
Very interesting article! I too have noticed this phenomenon. Feynman was
noted for playing bongo drums. And it's worth pointing out that Edward Witten
(generally considered to be the smartest living physicist by other physicists)
started out with a BA in _history_ and a minor in linguistics. He wrote
magazine articles, worked for a presidential campaign, tried economics for a
while, switched to applied math, and then finally gave theoretical physics a
shot, at which point he made numerous contributions to string theory, quantum
gravity, and quantum field theory. He's also the only physicist to win the
Fields Medal.

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hobo_mark
And his father is a theoretical physicist specializing in gravitation and
general relativity, it's not like one day he got off his bed and "gave
theoretical physics a shot".

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hugh4
This is a terrible study.

Firstly, it relies on two different sources of information about people's
hobbies: detailed biographies for Nobel laureates and something called the
Sigma Xi society for the general scientific population. I'm not sure what this
society is or how much information it has on its members' hobbies, but I
envisage some kind of form that invites you to name your hobbies. You would
expect perhaps not the same level of detail as you'd get from a biography or
obituary.

The second problem is taking members of the Sigma Xi society as representative
of the scientific population at large.

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JesperRavn
This is an interesting idea, but one source of bias that troubles me is that
after people have received a nobel prize, it might bias how they are
characterized by themselves or others. Maybe being a "famous person" makes us
characterize a person as more interesting, and upgrade their interests to
hobbies or something more serious.

For reference, according to the article _the data about the hobbies of members
of the Royal Society, National Academy, and of Nobel Prize winners was
gathered from biographies, memoirs, obituaries, and other research._

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papapra
I suppose it has something to do with the g factor...

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tinco
The type of science that's pursued by a person with a penchant for making
things that can be showcased to others is perhaps the sort of science that's
good material for a Nobel prize.

