Serendipity

Definition of Serendipity: Serendipity is when someone finds something that they were not expecting to find. Basically this means when someone has a "happy accident" or a "pleasant surprise".

Issues/Arguments related to serendipity: The question that I am answering is that if someone discovered something serendipitously, do they deserve the recognition for their finding.  Some of the main arguments that are brought up with this term are whether or not people who discover things serendipitously deserve recognition if they did not do much research or background studying in the past. The thing is that if scientists who spend their whole life striving towards a discovery or a new method to solve something lose the race to an accidental discovery by a high school chemistry student, then I think it is unfair to give all credit to the high school student.  Because even though the student may have stumbled upon the discovery, it is the scientist’s research that explains most of it.  This brings up many issues about serendipity. 

My opinion on serendipity: I think that scientists or even just others in general deserve all the recognition they desire, because in a simple sense, if they hadn’t discovered it then it would not be around for a period until someone else stumbled upon it.  Whether they were a scientist or not they have contributed to society.  However, I think that upon a discovery that person should have done a considerable amount of research or have some understanding in the field to take full credit. 

Examples/Context of Serendipity: A specific example of serendipity from the reading of “The Travels and Adventures of Serendipity” is the story of the Three princes of Sarendip. The example comes from when the three princes help out a camel driver who lost one of his camels.  The princes make inferences based on the camel when they passed it and after some questioning the driver finds out that the princes just came up with these conclusions based on what they had noticed about the camel.  In the end the camel is found with the help of these inferences.