Being right by accident

Next time you're right about something - anything - don't be too quick to be proud; rather, consider whether the underlying mental framework of analysis by means of which you initially arrived at your conclusion was truly rational, properly researched, and unbiased. If not, it may really only be by happy accident that you were right, which neither signals any kind of achievement, nor demonstrates any predictive power for being right about other things in future. When people are "right by accident", there is a risk that they will regard it as validation of their flawed reasoning methods, and use them again. As the saying goes, "even a broken clock is right twice a day". We should scrutinize our own reasoning methods as much when we're right as when we're wrong; ask yourself questions like "Why was I right? Was it for the right reasons? Were my sources sound? Was I ultimately really only guessing?"

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Last Refuges of Great Art

Image
The 'art world' should be ashamed that one of the last refuges of artistic beauty and value is not in the art world, but in the art produced by the artists of the video game industry ... I think there is more beauty and value in a single screenshot here than in all the works of the "Tate Modern" put together: http://www.videogamer.com/wii/secret_files_tunguska/screenshot-4.html (And there's plenty more like this out there.) Even the garbage bin is beautiful The rich, expansive virtual worlds created by video game artists are, in a loose sense, 'virtual art galleries' - they're often 'larger' than 'real' art galleries, you can comparably 'explore' them, and every virtual detail is almost like a small piece of art in its own right. If you're ever in London, try this "experiment": Visit the National Gallery (for its classical paintings collection) in the morning, and the Tate Modern in the aftern
Read more

The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis and the 'Wet Look'

Image
An Aquatic Ape I think the strongest 'circumstantial evidence' supporting a partial form of the (controversial)  aquatic ape hypothesis * is something I don't think I've seen mentioned before: The simple fact that we find  wet Homo sapiens sexually attractive. If you think about it, doesn't it seem a bit arbitrary? E.g. would gorillas find other wet gorillas sexy, or would rats find other wet rats sexy? How universal is this? If we consider the concept of sexual choice ** in evolution, then if our ancestors were once partially evolving "in that direction", then we might expect that they may have felt  a mate choice preference  for the entailed characteristics of a hypothetical "aquatic ape" (such as the 'wet look', as well as finding smooth, hairless skin comparatively more attractive, as we do). To consider this argument, look at a picture like the one above (or  this ,  this ,  this ,  this , or  this ) ... then (for men now) t
Read more