EVERYTHING can be put in a distribution. Showing that something is X standard deviations away from the mean does not explain at all how they got there.
Take SAT scores for example. Are the top scorers just lucky? Luck may explain one’s 1500 relative to a 1490 or 1510, but luck doesn’t explain the difference between 1000 and 1500 except for maybe some extreme tail case. More importantly, the fact that SAT scores fit on a distribution does not in any way show us how they got in that distribution.
Whether fund managers and artists are lucky or not is not proven or disproven by this blog post.
But SAT outcome for individuals is deterministic by design. If there was any significant luck component, it wouldn't be a good measure in the first place. Yet you can't deny the possibility that some fool could score 1500+ by merely circling the correct sequence of bubbles without having much skill. Furthermore winner doesn't take all in SATs. They just go to some college and that's the end of it. Contrast that with the stock market where there is a much more significant luck component and compounded effects of winners taking all and losers getting pruned out year after year.
Your statement, while widely believed has not been proven or disproven by the fact that people's success can be shown on a distribution.
Contrast that with the stock market where there is a much more significant luck component and compounded effects of winners taking all and losers getting pruned out year after year.
When you're dealing with professional artists, or professionals in any sense, it's the difference between a 1490 and a 1510 that is what is fundamentally unquantifiable.
Take SAT scores for example. Are the top scorers just lucky? Luck may explain one’s 1500 relative to a 1490 or 1510, but luck doesn’t explain the difference between 1000 and 1500 except for maybe some extreme tail case. More importantly, the fact that SAT scores fit on a distribution does not in any way show us how they got in that distribution.
Whether fund managers and artists are lucky or not is not proven or disproven by this blog post.