[1st-mile-nm] SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO what is data anyway

[peter]

On the quest of how truth / morality and honesty drive data ( or not ) I 
came across this priceless quotation which I though I would share.

Call me nuts but it makes so much sense

QUOTATION: 	There is a tendency to mistake data for wisdom, just as 
there has always been a tendency to confuse logic with values, 
intelligence with insight. Unobstructed access to facts can produce 
unlimited good only if it is matched by the desire and ability to find 
out what they mean and where they lead. Facts are terrible things if 
left sprawling and unattended. They are too easily regarded as evaluated 
certainties rather than as the rawest of raw materials crying to be 
processed into the texture of logic. It requires a very unusual mind, 
Whitehead said, to undertake the analysis of a fact. The computer can 
provide a correct number, but it may be an irrelevant number until 
judgment is pronounced.
ATTRIBUTION: 	Norman Cousins (1912--1990), U.S. editor, author. "Freedom 
as Teacher," Human Options: An Autobiographical Notebook, Norton (1981)


( : ( : pete
-- 

Peter Baston

*IDEAS*

/www.ideapete.com/ <http://www.ideapete.com/>


 

 

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