Certainty

Full Title or Meme

A little vagueness is less likely to cause irreparable harm than absolute certainty.

Context

We live in an age where we are giving increasing amounts on control to automatic processes. We need to step back to be sure that a hasty automation is not a grievous mistake.

Bertrand Russel (Philosopher, U of Cambridge)

Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise, and everything precise is so remote from everything that we normally think, that you cannot for a moment suppose that is what we really mean when we say what we think.

John Tukey (Statistician, U. of St. Andrews)

Far better an approximate answer to the right question, which is often vague, than the exact answer to the wrong question, which can always be made precise.

Clarence Darrow at the end of the Scopes Monkey Trial where Wm Jennings Bryan had tried, unsuccessfully, to prove the absolute literal truth of every word the Bible. Clearly Darrow believed that certainty was in science.

To him, the Bible should be read like any other great book. Portions of it are sublime and inspired. ... I believe that the Universe acts as it has always acted in accordance with immutable laws. And that what ever may be at the back of that Universe, it has never violated these universal laws.

Problem

Findings during the 21 century have shown that both the laws of the universe and the laws of living things may well be Emergent Behavior such that if the universe were restarted, it would look nothing like what we see around us today.

Solution

Never trust a person that starts with the answer and then works backwards to discover the problem.