Wednesday, February 24, 2010

The Relativity of Wrong

"John, when people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together."

-- Issac Asimov from the essay "The Relativity of Wrong"

Stolen from this article on a website called "Less Wrong," where this equally excellent quote appeared:

The Sophisticate: "The world isn't black and white. No one does pure good or pure bad. It's all gray. Therefore, no one is better than anyone else."
The Zetet: "Knowing only gray, you conclude that all grays are the same shade. You mock the simplicity of the two-color view, yet you replace it with a one-color view..."
-- Marc Stiegler, David's Sling

No comments:

Post a Comment