Quote for the day
"Like all revolutionary new ideas, the subject has had to pass through three stages, which may be summed up by these reactions:
- (1) 'It's crazy - don't waste my time.'
- (2) 'It's possible, but it's not worth doing.'
- (3) 'I always said it was a good idea.'"
* He was talking about space exploration, but it can be applied to any revolutionary new idea. Oh, and his quote is adapted from an original thought by Shopenhauer, which itself was adapted by philosopher William James, but I think Clarke said it the best.
posted by Andrew Collins @ 1:40 PM
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21 Comments:
hey. that better not be an old fashioned lightbulb. or Gordon Brown's Socialist stormtroopers* will be round to smash it.
*copyright, The Daily Mail
Unfortunately there are many, many more ideas of which begin and end at (1).
Can't wait to get you in my cottage.
Mr Collins, I think Mr Herring is going to experiment on you.
My word verification is unduh. I like it.
Is this a sly reference to homoeopathy, Andrew?
Not that sly, wowser, that's what I thought!
Tell us if we were wrong Andrew, we may be being unfair - we all believe lots of things and as we feel strongly about that particular idea you have we're probably far more fixated on it than you are!
Arthur C. Clarke what a plagiarist! The original quote is by legendary biologist J.B.S. Haldane who used this phrase when reviewing a book for a Genetics journal in the early 1960s (I have it stuck on a fridge in my lab). Pah, saying this, Haldane probably nicked it from somewhere.
Steve
(1)'It's crazy - shooting squirels is a waste of time.'
(2) 'It's possible, but shooting squirrels isn't worth doing.'
(3) 'I always said shooting squirrels was a good idea.'"
Only kidding. This quote is very true and is certainly one for the scrapbook.
Steve, I assume you bypassed my small print.
If JBS Haldane said it in the 1960s (and it seems he did), he was about 50 years behind William James, and 180 years behind Arthur Schopenhauer, the earliest attribution I can find. Haldane seems to have written his version of it in 1963:
Four stages of acceptance:
i) This is worthless nonsense;
ii) This is an interesting, but perverse, point of view;
iii) This is true, but quite unimportant;
iv) I always said so.
Clarke got it back down to three, as per Schopenhauer's original. Unless anyone knows better. I still like the way Clarke words it. (Actually, are we perchance talking a bit too much about who said it and not enough about what they said?)
I wasn't necessarily thinking about homeopathy, Wowser and Keir. Homeopathy has just come to represent Things I Have An Interest In. I have an interest in many aspects of human life. I am particularly interested in ideas. Especially revolutionary ones that eventually become commonplace. I heard someone use the Clarke/Haldane/Everybody Else quote in a speech and it has remained with me. The consensus often absorbs ideas that were once seen as revolutionary.
It is quite a logical and critical way of appraising a new idea though, and possibly actually makes the proposer of a revolutionary idea to raise their game and prove why it should be adopted.
What does it do? Why should we do it? What evidence is there to support it?
As I read it - whichever version of the same basic quote - it's not about the idea, but about the three stages of the way the idea is perceived. The idea doesn't change; the reaction to it does. You can see why Clarke might use it to plot the acceptance of space exploration.
So it's akin to Ghandi's "they ignored us, then they laughed at us, then they fought us, then we won".
I used to think this was a perceptive insight. Then it became quite banal. Actually, thinking about it, I don't even think it's true anymore.
Surely with regard to space exploration, reversing the order would quite accurately represent the sequence of the reactions of many people? And isn't that true of lots of revolutionary ideas? Or am I just a broken shell of a man?
Apologies, Andrew - how do you go back to the old posts?
Anyway, what I actually want to do is echo your sentiments about Front Row.It's got what you need in the old 'Top Of The Pops ' slot - a bit of film, a bit of theatre,and a bit about books - plus some funny stuff from David Quantick.
Isn't it another way of saying success has many fathers but failure is a B*stard. Success here being the success of an idea or believe.
Here is my crazy ideas.
I have a theory that the Liverpool accent is from Viking Welsh people.
The Upper class accent is from French niomrnas killing off the English elites. Also that Amercian accent is Scottish and Irish. What does everyone else think.
http://www.lonympics.co.uk/Theoriesonaccents.htm
What do you think
"But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown."
--Carl Sagan
"In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken," and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion."
--Carl Sagan
"But in order to be the next Galileo,it's not enough to be persecuted by an orthodoxy. You also have to be right."
--Carl Sagan
Ross, I suspect you already have, but if you haven't I'd recommend reading Carl Sagan's "The Demon Haunted World - Science as a candle in the dark". I read it as a teenager and loved it.
It's also one of the books that Robin Ince says influenced him in wanting to find out more about science and ultimately setting up the "School for gifted children".
I prefer Clarke's Fourth Law myself:
"For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert."
-- David
Ross.
Tony Blair, in converting to Catholism (like Anne Widdecome before him), accepted that his previous position was mistaken.
An example of change happening in both religion and politics.
Shame they couldn't do it about anything that might actually matter.
Penry
(Thronia: A Naiad nymph, the mother of Abderus by Poseidon)
The 'hype cycle' is perhaps the modern-day version of this - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle. It was designed for technologies rather than 'ideas', but perhaps still fits.
The number of steps goes up to 5. I'll paraphrase:
1) Launch of the idea.
2) Peak of over-inflated expectations.
3) Trough of disillusionment
4) Upward slope of enlightenment
5) Plateau of stability.
I wonder if this will end up applying to ideas like communism/socialism...
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