John Williams wrote: > Taking a complicated situation and equating it to a simple one, and > then assuming that what holds for the simple situation holds for the > complex one, is likely to lead to incorrect information, flawed > decisions, and overconfidence in one's ability to predict the > evolution of the complicated situation.
Is the complicated situation the misuse of the word predict? That's what the analogy was intended to illustrate. Beyond that, an analogy is intended to be a simplified version of the subject in order that the reader better understand what the writer is trying to convey. Thus if I say "The building is shaped like an inverted cone." the reader gets an immediate picture of what I am trying to convey. I'm not trying to say that the cone is the same as the building, only that they have similarities in shape. Doug _______________________________________________ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
