Sterling Terrell

recovering economist

Seeing Is Believing?

Seeing Is Believing?

If it is true that seeing is believing, it feels like that opens up a lot of room for mistake.

First, it puts visuals on a pedestal, while informally dismissing deduction.

A priori knowledge counts too, after all.

But second, only believing what you see and experience can allow others the opportunity to manipulate you.

For you are not the only one that knows how powerful visuals can be.

Aren’t we all just searching for the truth, in our own messy ways?

The secret of seeing is, then, the pearl of great price. If I thought he could teach me to find it and keep it forever I would stagger barefoot across a hundred deserts after any lunatic at all. But although the pearl may be found, it may not be sought. The literature of illumination reveals this above all: although it comes to those who wait for it, it is always, even to the most practiced and adept, a gift and a total surprise.

-Annie Dillard, Pilgrim At Tinker Creek

You Have No Clue What You’re Talking About?

You Have No Clue What You’re Talking About?

Have you ever considered the possibility that you have no clue?

I try to consider this likelihood.

This is why I try to end as many statements as possible with question marks.

See, I had this reaction when I heard someone try to say something smart about statistics the other day.

My first thought was, “Have you ever even been in a statistics class?”

My guess is not.

But like the rest of us, they are probably doing nothing but reading headlines and blowing hot air.

In reality, we are very limited in what we know.

But let’s say you are excellent at a given thing, a true master of your domain, like Thomas Sargent. Does this mean you are also more likely to excel in a different domain? A sizable body of research says the answer is no. The takeaway here is simple but powerful: just because you’re great at something doesn’t mean you’re good at everything. Unfortunately, this fact is routinely ignored by those who engage in—take a deep breath—ultracrepidarianism, or “the habit of giving opinions and advice on matters outside of one’s knowledge or competence.”

–Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, Think Like A Freak

Sterling Terrell