Strong Opinions and Sutton’s Law

I am taken by the comments by people about my post on Strong Opinions, Weakly Held. Just as the first time I heard this idea from Bob Johansen at the Institute for the Future, it strikes many people as a compelling test of whether a person is wise or not. There is an intriguing footnote to all this in Rich’s comment, where he points out that historian A. J. P. Taylor is credited with a similar remark that was published in the 1970’s, describing himself as having “Extreme views weakly held.” I also got a number of emails about other variations on this theme. I especially liked the one from Marc Garrett, who writes since1968.com. Marc tells me the tagline he has been using for several years is "Fierce opinions, briefly held, quietly disowned." I admire both the wisdom and the honesty in that statement.

I bet if we dug into it enough, we could find variations of this saying that go back for thousands of years. Certainly, the idea of having the courage to express yourself and act, but to update your ideas when better facts and ideas come along, goes back at least to Plato’s writings.  A lovely example of the impossibility of tracking down who said what first can be found in a 1965 book by the late sociologist Robert C. Merton, On the Shoulders of Giants Merton documents his quest to discover who first developed a saying that is often attributed to Sir Isaac Newton, “If I have seen farther, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” As Merton shows, Newton didn’t invent this saying. The originator turns out to be impossible to find, as this charming book shows. Merton – with the help of many colleagues -- finds variations that go back at least 1,000 years before Newton's time. My favorite is  “A dwarf standing on the shoulder of a giant may see farther than the giant himself.”

The ignorance, arrogance, and lack of humility that too often goes along with claims of originality has led me (as I said in an earlier post) to propose Sutton’s Law in Hard Facts: “If you think that you have a new idea, you are wrong. Someone else probably already had it. This idea isn’t original either; I stole it from someone else”

PS: Merton’s son, also Robert C. Merton, won the Nobel Prize in economics in 1997 -- quite a family!

Comments

[Ken]

Keynes was being hounded at a congressional hearing about his opinion and how new information may have changed his opinion. The politician thought he had a gotcha moment then John Maynard Keynes said:
When confronted with new information, I reassess and modify my position. What, sir, do you do when confronted with new information?

Game, set, match to Keynes.

[Barry Ritholtz]

Fascinating discussion --it has applicability far beyond management science.

This is a terrific mindset for investors, who all too often become way too enamored with their holdings.