What is the secret of success?

Today, 25/4/9, p.10
Failure + rebellion = success
By Esther Ng

Quote1:
Chief judge Tim Hunt treated those present with his rousing and humorous speech ... at the Singapore Science and Engineering Fair (SSEF) Awards and A*STAR Talent Search (ATS). ... The 2001 Nobel Laureate for physiology or medicine had some unconventional views on success for budding scientists here. "It might be better to be a loser than a winner in the long run because it will make you try harder in the future," said Professor Hunt, on the difficulty of picking a winner because the quality of the competition was very high. ...

Comment1:
It strikes me as odd to say that it is better to be a loser in the long run. Also, in the long run, there is no more future. The sentence is poorly constructed, thus leading to this odd meaning. This is an instance of amphiboly, where poor sentence structure adversely affects meaning. A clearer construction is: "It might be better in the long run to be a loser now than a winner because it will make you try harder."

Quote2:
Being a successful scientist is also being a rebel at times, he added. ... "Singapore [is] very conformist. ... I just wonder whether that strand ... militates against real excellence in science, where you need to rebel against what other people think and be prepared to be an outcast and suffer failure for a while," he said. ...

Comment2:
The danger here is to read rebellion as a sufficient condition for success. Consider this sentence: "A real fire needs a plentiful supply of oxygen." It states a necessary condition, not a sufficient one. Excellence must endure being outcast, but not all outcasts are excellent. That is the correct reading.

Quote3:
Nicholas Chen's work on micromagnetics and improving data storage earned him gold in the SSEF and first prize in the ATS. ... [He said:] "Like Professor Hunt, my heart sank when I learnt that I had to understand Schrodingers Equation. But I actually motivated myself to learn the math and the physics on my own because if you don't take the risk to enter a tiger's den to take its cubs, you won't know whether you'll succeed." His efforts have paid off -- he will be heading to the United States next month to represent Singapore in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.

Comment3:
The danger here is to read risk as a sufficient condition for success. Entering a tiger's den can also result in the brave soul becoming the tiger's dinner. This is the same argument that lies behind sales pitches for structured financial products: "Risk big, win big". Remember that "risk big" can also end in "lose big". Nicholas Chen's risk paid off; yours may not.