Academic superstars

competent or lucky?

Remco Heesen

pp. 4499-4518

in: Cameron Buckner, Ellen Fridland (eds), Cognition, Synthese 194 (11), 2017.

Abstract

I show that the social stratification of academic science can arise as a result of academics’ preference for reading work of high epistemic value. This is consistent with a view on which academic superstars are highly competent academics, but also with a view on which superstars arise primarily due to luck. I argue that stratification is beneficial if most superstars are competent, but not if most superstars are lucky. I also argue that it is impossible to tell whether most superstars are in fact competent or lucky, or which group a given superstar belongs to, and hence whether stratification is overall beneficial.