Ignorance, Iteration and the Entrepreneur Paul Kedrosky Apr 17/08

Four Postulates

Postulate #1

Postulate #2

Far better an approximate answer to the right question , which is often vague , than an exact answer to the wrong question , which can always be made precise . J. Tukey (1962), Annals of Mathematics and Statistics 33:1-67

Postulate #3

" What the deuce is it to me? You say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work." -- Sherlock Holmes in "A Study in Scarlet", Arthur Conan Doyle

Postulate #4

Ignorance Questions Focus Optimism

How You Do What You Do

If I am interested in, say, the distribution of the intensities of hurricanes , I cannot just “collect data more frequently”: I will just have to wait for the next hurricane to arrive. Source: R. Rebonatto, Plight of the Fortune-Tellers (2007)

Gorillas in our midst

Scratch Peripheral Perspective Data Gorillas Iterate

Tomorrow is going to be wonderful since today, I do not understand anything . - Niels Bohr

A challenge.

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