A little learning is not a dangerous thing to one who does not mistake it for a great deal.
-- William A White
A little learning is not a dangerous thing to one who does not mistake it for a great deal.
-- William A White
A minor addition:
Try a thing you haven’t done three times. Once, to get over the fear of doing it. Twice, to learn how to do it. And a third time to figure out whether you like it or not.
-- Virgil Thomson
The most practical thing in the world is a good theory.
Helmholtz
Speed is not attained by hurrying; it is an unsought by-product of intelligent and continuous work.
-- Frederick Giesecke, et al, Technical Drawing, 8th ed
The converse, “Just because you are wrong, doesn’t mean that I am right”, is harder for most people to remember.
The problem with tolerating religion is that, as Dawkins pointed out, it has received too much tolerance already. One reason religion is so widespread and obnoxious is that it has been so off limits to criticism for so long.
To stay young requires unceasing cultivation of the ability to unlearn old falsehoods.
-- Robert A Heinlein, Notebooks of Lazarus Long
And when someone makes a statement you don’t understand, don’t tell him he’s crazy. Ask him what he means.
-- H Beam Piper, “Space Viking”
The analogies between biological and social evolution are limited. Not only does group selection work in social evolution, but social evolution is Lamarckian in that it retains acquired traits. So you need to be careful when reasoning from one to another; I think that is one reason people keep trying to “justify” group selection in biology.
For anyone that hasn’t seen it yet, here’s Nick Bostrom’s Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant.
Thinking allows us to anticipate ill consequences without suffering them.
Roger Peters, Practical Intelligence
There are actually multiple reasons, some stories stress different ones. The one I like is that by keeping the results secret, they can train students in discovery by encouraging/forcing them to rediscover the laws as part of their training.
When somebody makes a statement you don’t understand, don’t tell him he’s crazy. Ask him what he means.
-- H Beam Piper, Space Viking
In the Information Age, the first step to sanity is FILTERING. Filter the information; extract the knowledge.
Filter first for substance. Filter second for significance. These filters protect against advertising.
Filter third for reliability. This filter protects against politicians.
Filter fourth for completeness. This filter protects from the media.
-- Marc Stielger, David’s Sling
Maybe it is “puerile”, but it is also much more likely than the common belief.
How emotionally entangled are you with your point of view? Test yourself—defend an opposing view, believing your life depends upon it.
-- Marc Stiegler, David’s Sling
It is instinctual, not learned. Evolution chunked it, not you.
You don’t learn things from flash cards, you fix things you have already learned into your memory. And memorizing the formulas encoding theorems is definitely helpful.
Too broad a viewpoint, too philosophical an outlook paralyzes the will.
-- Robert A Heinlein, Lost Legacy
Aretae