Mistakes are the driving force for life.

Stupid Predictions
Compiled by others

"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" H.M. Warner, head of Warner Bros. Studio rejecting a new movie technology in 1927

"Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons."
"Popular Mechanics," forecasting the relentless march of
science, 1949

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943

"I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked
with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a
fad that won't last out the year."
The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957

"But what is it good for?"
Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM,
1968, commenting on the microchip.

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."
Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital
Equipment Corp., 1977

"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously
considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of
no value to us."
Western Union internal memo, 1876.

"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who
would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?"
David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for
investment in the radio in the 1920s.

"The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn
better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible."
A Yale University management professor in response to Fred
Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service.
Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.

"I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not
Gary Cooper."
Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in
"Gone With The Wind."

"A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports
say

America

likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like
you make."
Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies.

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."
Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible."
Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895.

"If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The
literature was full of examples that said you can't do this."
Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for
3-M "Post-It" Notepads.

"So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing,
even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about
funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our
salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then we
went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we don't need you. You
haven't got through college yet.'"
Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get
Atari and H-P interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal
computer.

We are All Victims of Success

Knowledge can give you choices and take them away, but it cannot make you choose the right way. In fact the stupider you are the more free you are to blunder your way though a situation. Think of the young man who flew the Cessna into Red Square in the 1980s. He knew nothing about evading radar, but he did what no expert would have tried.

Art, for example, is the domaine of stupid people. What usually needs to happen in any fashion, in any artistic endevor, is for the artist to make a huge faux pas which is done so confidentally one or two people out of thousand don't realize the mistake. These few make this mistake because they don't really understand existing art and are distracted by the artist's confidence. Then among those few people someone says the right thing to the right people in the right places and a new artistic fashion has begun. Just look at those hip-hop fashion victims with their underwear showing, their pants pulled down to their knees and unable to run when they need to and you can see what I mean. All the arts, and most other games, are mistakes that got away, but, somewhere along the way, they were rationalized into a success.

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The Real Anthropomorphism Fallacy
Geoffrey Hamilton

Blog, March 14, 2006

One of the greatest blunders of modern science has been the claim of anthropomorphism. Animals do, act, are, can be just like humans in so many ways it is the basic assumption by scientists in medical research and evolutionary theory. Yet despite all this, somehow that assumption is called a fallacy when it suits these scientists.

The claim has many faults not least of which is irrelevancy. If you are looking for truths, what does it matter in itself if there are differences or similarities in various beings in the view of these scientists? Everything, every human being has differences and similarities. Darwin claimed every person is a mutant to some degree. There is nothing that is not dissimilar or similar according to the context you throw it in. So what? Why must they then constanty imply, when they don't state it bluntly, that humans are better? Whether it's intellegence, emotion, or some combination, scientists must run for this cover for no other reason than guilt. What they feel guilty about is the often thoughtless uses they put animals to. But even when the uses are thoughtful and the guilt is less strong, they become more bold in their claims and more ridiculous - like Descarte they even claim animals have the feeling and intelligence of a jack-in-the-box.

Usually some new cartesian, or other, will cite their stock assertion against animal rights sympathizers or someone just using common sense. Rarely, if ever, is the charge of anthropomorphism ever argued. It is usually used just in a mocking tone, as in "You poor fools, I'm not fooled". These scientists don't even know why they do it. When not feeling guilty sometimes they just want to feel superior to both animals and other humans.

Darwin is the patron saint for many of these same scientists even though he argued animals are like humans, especially emotionally. Yet somehow these blowhards can still disrespect Darwin and call his ideas pejoratively anthropomorphism. The other thing they do is dismiss as anecdotal the overwhelming numbers of cases of animal's manifest emotion and intellect laden motivations during actions for themselves or in helping people. They call that scientific observation a fallacy for no other reason than fear. Typically they never acknowledge a single problem with their basic assumption - that people are best - and swagger on behalf of their team like Kilgore in Apocalypse Now over the bodies of 'dirty Cong'. Maybe it time they got back to their main business of figuring things out and not trying maintain a humanist religion.

GRH

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People will occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of the time they will pick themselves up and continue on. -- Churchill

Experts and their forecasts:fromThe Experts Speak

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." -- Lord Kelvin, 1895

"There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable." -- Albert Einstein, 1932

"I think there is a world market for about four or five electronic computers." -- Thomas Watson, IBM, 1943

"There is no reason for an individual to have a computer in their home." -- Ken Olsen, DEC, 1977

A consensus means that everyone agrees to say collectively what no one believes individually. --Abba Eban

"Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil?
You're crazy."
Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to
drill for oil in 1859.

"The bomb will never go off. I speak as an expert in explosives."
Admiral William Leahy, US Atomic Bomb Project.

"This fellow Charles Lindbergh will never make it. He's doomed."
Harry Guggenheim, millionaire aviation enthusiast.

"Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau."
Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929.

"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value."
Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole
Superieure de Guerre.

"Man will never reach the moon regardless of all future scientific
advances."
Dr. Lee De Forest, inventor of the vacuum tube and father of
television.

"Everything that can be invented has been invented."
Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899.