> Louis Pasteur's famous saying "Luck favours the prepared mind" suggests that luck can be harnessed to make more discoveries ...
No, Pasteur's remark was meant to convey that there's no such thing as luck. Chance and luck aren't the same thing, and chance events are better exploited by someone intellectually prepared for them.
As to the linked article, I hadn't realized that Wikipedia was allowing personal-opinion essays to be posted as though they were encyclopedia entries.
> Kevin Dunbar and Jonathan Fugelsang say that somewhere between 33% and 50% of all scientific discoveries are unexpected.
Oh, great, psychologists offer a handwaving explanation of the scientific method, but without bothering to use the scientific method themselves.
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[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 16.1 ms ] threadNo, Pasteur's remark was meant to convey that there's no such thing as luck. Chance and luck aren't the same thing, and chance events are better exploited by someone intellectually prepared for them.
As to the linked article, I hadn't realized that Wikipedia was allowing personal-opinion essays to be posted as though they were encyclopedia entries.
> Kevin Dunbar and Jonathan Fugelsang say that somewhere between 33% and 50% of all scientific discoveries are unexpected.
Oh, great, psychologists offer a handwaving explanation of the scientific method, but without bothering to use the scientific method themselves.