Angela Duckworth is but one evangelist, among many others. It's its own phenomenon: academicans (see: people whose self-worth is predicated on the popularity of

Angela Duckworth is but one evangelist, among many others. It's its own phenomenon: academicans (see: people whose self-worth is predicated on the popularity of their ideas) preaching their new gospel -- itself just a spin-off of some old, not-that-enlightening observations. But! If you sell it with enough passion and vigor and conviction, it sure does rile the masses into believing. > “My lab has found that this measure beats the pants off I.Q., SAT scores, physical fitness and a bazillion other measures to help us know in advance which individuals will be successful in some situations,” Need more be said? Science is itself a self-perpetuating industry. Statistics and findings can be massaged into whatever you want to see -- that's simply abusing our propensity to recognize patterns, to its utmost extreme. More new, novel, monkey-go-ape patterns to fuss about. More books to sell. More speeches to give. More money to make. Here's a hot-take, that won't drive unneeded publicity and revenue towards another idea salesman: the more you persevere -- i.e the more grit you have -- the more chances you get to succeed. Please please, there's no need to write a PhD dissertation a la "A meta-analytic synthesis of the grit literature."[0] Absolutely absurd. [0] Credé, M., Tynan, M.C., & Harms, P.D. Much ado about grit: A meta-analytic synthesis of the grit literature. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 113, 492-511 (2017).