Thursday, 22 March 2012

The Postmodern Theorist

A mistake is simply another way of doing things.
 — Katharine Graham

Tuesday, 20 March 2012

Monday, 19 March 2012

Uropæan

I imagine hell like this: Italian punctuality, German humour and English wine.
 ― Peter Ustinov

Friday, 16 March 2012

Free Before The Law

Every law is an infraction of liberty.
 ― Jeremy Bentham

Monday, 27 February 2012

The Dunning–Kruger Effect

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people reach erroneous conclusions and make unfortunate choices but their incompetence robs them of the metacognitive ability to realise it.

The unskilled therefore suffer from illusory superiority, rating their own ability as above average, much higher than in actuality; by contrast, the highly skilled underrate their abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority.

This leads to a perverse result where less competent people will rate their own ability higher than more competent people.

It also explains why actual competence may weaken self-confidence because competent individuals falsely assume that others have an equivalent understanding.

Thus, the miscalibration of the incompetent stems from an error about the self, whereas the miscalibration of the highly competent stems from an error about others.

Sunday, 26 February 2012

Animal Quakers

We think of the Quakers now as eminently respectable,
but in the early days they seemed rather closer to hooligans
— inspirational, idealistic, infinitely courageous —
but hooligans none the less.
 — Bamber Gascoigne 'The Christians'

Friday, 24 February 2012

Newton's Third Law Of Self–Promotion

For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert.
— Anonymous

Thursday, 23 February 2012

Freedom

The loss of liberty is the price we pay for freedom.
— Alan Bennett 'The History Boys'

Liberty: One of Imagination's most precious possessions.
— Ambrose Bierce