News From:
Internuts
• www.edge.org:
A fascinating site that conducts an annual solicitation of new “natural laws” from a variety of people, most of them well-known in some field. Here's one from Gerd Gigerenzer, a behavioral psychologist: “The world cannot function without partially ignorant people.” This is a condensation of observations from many behavioral studies. For example, he notes: “Ordinary people who selected stocks by name recognition outperformed most market experts and the Fidelity Growth Fund.”
My own favorite “law,” not listed on this site but well-suited to computers and many other subjects, was iterated many years ago by science fiction author Poul Anderson, who noted: “There is no subject, no matter how complex, which if looked at in just the right way, cannot be made more complex.”