Saturday, July 29, 2006

The Wisdom Fallacy: Why Management Is Really Like Math

Short blog article about management, but it is actually applicable to many other areas as well.

>>People separate knowledge into two major categories. The first consists of areas where some people know more than others (math, physics, computer programming, history, linguistics, etc.) and the second consists of areas where they don't (religion, politics, raising a family, etc.). The second area has always baffled me. Why will people willingly say they know nothing about math, but will rarely admit the same thing about politics or religion? Why will people accept advice on a subject, from someone that has studied it in depth, if that subject is programming, but not if it has to do with raising their children? Why, in some areas of knowledge, do we equate studying with mastery, and in other areas we don't? I'll call this the "wisdom fallacy" - that people believe wisdom has no correlation with knowledge for some subjects, when really it does.<<

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