confused of calcutta

a blog about information

confused of calcutta header image 4

Ehrlich’s Law(s)

May 24th, 2007 · 6 Comments · Four pillars

Does anyone out there know anything about the various statements purporting to be Ehrlich’s Law? I was researching a German scientist named Ehrlich when I came across this in Wikipedia:
Ehrlich’s Law:  “People pay way too much attention to things that are easily quantified.”
Seemed a perfectly reasonable thing to say, very John Allen Paulos. So I [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:

Flexner on his version of collective intelligence

May 24th, 2007 · No Comments · Four pillars

Another quote from Abraham Flexner’s “The Usefulness of Useful Knowledge“, the kernel for my earlier post today:
….Thus it becomes obvious that one must be wary in attributing scientific discovery wholly to any one person. Almost every discovery has a long and precarious history. Someone finds a bit here, another a bit there. A third step [...]

[Read more →]

Tags:

Of “Possible Use” and “Permeated Minds”

May 24th, 2007 · 1 Comment · Four pillars

I guess quite a few of you will already have read Abraham Flexner’s essay “The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge“. Flexner was the founding Director of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, and originally wrote the essay as a memo for thr General Education Board; he later used it as the basis for an address [...]

[Read more →]

Tags: