One of the persistent fallacies that seem to affect people across the board, including those trained as scientists – at least when looking beyond their specialty – is the Fallacy of Accuracy. We are wowed by decimal places. This stretches from simple situations when knowing the difference between half and a third would suffice and we focus in on obtaining a measure that's down to the third decimal place; on to the Panopticon Mentality of the security apparatus that converts limitless budgets into an infinity of data points. There is a conflation of security with specificity of "knowledge" that takes us into the spiral death-traps of over-reach.
Education as Over-Reach, the Fallacy of Accuracy
Education as Over-Reach, the Fallacy of…
Education as Over-Reach, the Fallacy of Accuracy
One of the persistent fallacies that seem to affect people across the board, including those trained as scientists – at least when looking beyond their specialty – is the Fallacy of Accuracy. We are wowed by decimal places. This stretches from simple situations when knowing the difference between half and a third would suffice and we focus in on obtaining a measure that's down to the third decimal place; on to the Panopticon Mentality of the security apparatus that converts limitless budgets into an infinity of data points. There is a conflation of security with specificity of "knowledge" that takes us into the spiral death-traps of over-reach.