I know it’s not your main point, but for the actual 4-minute-mile I’m on the side of the null hypothesis. In a steady progression, once any one arbitrary threshold is crossed (4:10 minutes, 4:00 minutes, 3:50 minutes), many others are soon to follow.
Trolling a bit, perhaps we could talk about a “4-Minute-Mile Gell-Mann Effect”. Events that to outsiders look like discontinuous revolutions look to insiders like minor ticks with surprising publicity.
Thanks for the point. I was going to add this as a footnote in a draft relating to uncertainty about the anecdote specifically (though it doesn’t quite capture your critique):
Sometimes called the Bannister Effect, though the 4-minute mile effect is more understandable. Also, I chose the 4-minute-mile anecdote because it is pithy and present in the Overton window. There exists conjecture as to whether subsequent records after Bannister’s mile were due to a psychological effect (compared to, say, equipment improvements; I’m not concerned with the epistemics of this particular anecdote, so I did not investigate this in detail).
It’s possible that some of the other anecdotes also were linear rather than step changes. Though, I still lean towards thinking they were step changes in behavior.
I know it’s not your main point, but for the actual 4-minute-mile I’m on the side of the null hypothesis. In a steady progression, once any one arbitrary threshold is crossed (4:10 minutes, 4:00 minutes, 3:50 minutes), many others are soon to follow.
Trolling a bit, perhaps we could talk about a “4-Minute-Mile Gell-Mann Effect”. Events that to outsiders look like discontinuous revolutions look to insiders like minor ticks with surprising publicity.
Typo: should be “Gell-Mann”
Context for anyone who missed it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect
Thanks for the point. I was going to add this as a footnote in a draft relating to uncertainty about the anecdote specifically (though it doesn’t quite capture your critique):
It’s possible that some of the other anecdotes also were linear rather than step changes. Though, I still lean towards thinking they were step changes in behavior.