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As Voltaire said: ‘The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.’
and the plural of anecdote is not data.
‘I think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that’.
I now have this pasted to the wall behind my desk.
The real purpose of the scientific method is to make sure nature hasn’t misled you into thinking you know something you actually don’t know. Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Fifty years ago you could sketch out a full explanation of how an AM radio worked on the back of a napkin, using basic school-level knowledge of science, and build a crystal set in a classroom which was essentially the same as the one in your car. When your parents were young they could fix their own car, and understand the science behind most of the everyday technology they encountered, but this is no longer the case. Even a geek today would struggle to give an explanation of how his mobile phone works, because technology has become more difficult to understand and explain, and everyday
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Forget when your parent were young, when I was young things were so much simpler. I did mechanics at school and used to regularly tinker with my first three or four cars but wouldn’t dream of popping the bonnet (hood) on a car now.
‘The true cost of something,’ as the Economist says, ‘is what you give up to get it.’
What an excellent definition of cost for all you accountants out there.
