The Taoist Dragon I saw this image recently and liked it quite a bit. I was reading about the development of dualistic thinking. In the western tradition the idea of dualisms is thought to have been first developed by Herclitus. He is our “…you can’t step in the same stream twice…” friend, who noted that [...]
In today’s press there are a number of clear examples of the fundamental and critical difference between explaining and predicting. The type and quality of knowledge required for each are substantively different.CBS leads this hour’s Google news offering with the following: “How Obama became the man to beat.”But, wait a minute. If CBS understands how [...]
The following is an interesting piece which illustrates an important point about scientific thinking. Our knowledge and prediction is limited by our experience. Assertions or predictions about the world around us and our history on the planet are based on what we have observed. Who knows what unfound human remains might tell us about early [...]
Deming was fond of saying, management is prediction and, in this, I think he was exactly right. Management never takes action or makes decision to affect what happened yesterday, but rather to bring about what is hoped to be a desirable outcome tomorrow. Even when a manager is reacting to yesterday’s crisis, the action taken [...]
The term Operational Definition was coined by Percy Bridgman and appeared in his book, The Logic of Modern Physics published in 1927 by Macmillan. I take the following from that book: “What do we mean by the length of an object? We evidently know what we mean by length if we can tell what the [...]
