Abstract
Fat tailed statistics and power-laws are ubiquitous in many complex systems. Usually the appearance of of a few anomalously successful individuals (bio-species, investors, websites) is interpreted as reflecting some inherent “quality” (fitness, talent, giftedness) as in Darwin's theory of natural selection. Here we adopt the opposite, “neutral”, outlook, suggesting that the main factor explaining success is merely luck. The statistics emerging from the neutral birth-death-mutation (BDM) process is shown to fit marvelously many empirical distributions. While previous neutral theories have focused on the power-law tail, our theory economically and accurately explains the entire distribution. We thus suggest the BDM distribution as a standard neutral model: effects of fitness and selection are to be identified by substantial deviations from it.
Highlights
Survival of the fittest or of the luckiest? The answer depends on the subject considered
In the absence of prior knowledge, statistics must be used in order to identify the role of fortune: wineglass life expectancy, for example, is described by an exponential distribution
As a starting point for the presentation of our new neutral model, let us stick for the moment to the original context of Yule theory, the species within genera statistics
Summary
Survival of the fittest or of the luckiest? The answer depends on the subject considered. We suggest a correction that yields different statistics and show that the new distribution fits many ‘‘canonical’’ empirical datasets very nicely.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
