Which in turn reminds me of the play of Craig's that was read last year at GeVa -- biologist doesn't properly record control samples in an appropriate way, and sure enough it's indistinguishable from actual fraud (with an attendant irony I won't spoil for folks who might see it someday). Can't remember the name (sorry, Craig). (I know Steve was there, but don't remember if anyone else was.) And all of this reminds me of the so-called 'Kruger-Dunning effect', whereby "...people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices, but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realize it...." [1]
A related formulation by Darwin: "It has often and confidently been asserted, that man's origin can never be known. But ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science." But then, as Twain remarked, "To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence." I.e., sometimes we need to be ignorant of what we're facing, or we wouldn't take it on. -- 1. PDF: http://www.apa.org/journals/features/psp7761121.pdf HTML from Google: http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:vlX_V9SqScUJ:www.apa.org/journals/features/psp7761121.pdf On Tue, May 19, 2009 at 11:59 PM, Alicia Henn <[email protected]>wrote: > > I saw a corollary on that in The Scientist in reference to ethical > accusations against a researcher that were later found to be > unsubstantiated. > > Sufficiently poor record keeping is indistinguishable from actual fraud. > > > On May 19, 2009, at 9:23 AM, Pat Rapp wrote: > > > > > I love it! > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On > > Behalf Of > > SteveC > > Sent: Monday, May 18, 2009 11:12 AM > > To: R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association > > Subject: Best variation on Clarke > > > > > > I saw this on teh Internets and I love it. > > > > Sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from actual > > malice. > > > > Steve > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -- eric scoles ([email protected]) --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "R-SPEC: The Rochester Speculative Literature Association" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/r-spec?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
