The Rule of Trifling Errors

Throw out the baby with the bath water

        —German Proverb from 1500s

Ignorance through Imperfections!

A single imperfection will cause people to ignore the truths that may exist in a hypothesis. This is not the same as disproving a hypothesis by finding the counter example, but more along the lines of discounting double entry bookkeeping because of a math error.

Take Franklin’s initial statement of electrical theory that included the concept that the particles that carried the charge flowed from the positive to the negative. When it was discovered that the moving particle was the electron and that electrons have a negative charge, the hypothesis was revised, not discarded.

However, most people, when faced with a complex set of statements that might make them think, will find a flaw in presentation and use it to reject the whole. “The particle is negatively charged, therefore there is no electricity!”

If you think this is overstated I invite you to go to any political web site, listen to any political discussion, mention Global Warming or Evolution, or talk to your spouse and make a minor error in the presentation of your facts.