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We are highly prone to error

Each week we pose the question, how can smart people make such embarrassing mistakes? It’s disturbing, I know, but only the brightest minds make the worst blunders. We don’t let newbies and airheads lead us into the abyss. Epic tragedy only occurs when we trust the right people at the wrong time. “How the mighty have fallen!”

 

Recent episodes feature big ideas like the divine right of kings and social Darwinism. Impetuous youth featured in two shows about twenty-somethings—At the Olympics, Lindsey Jacobellis grabbed her snowboard and became a snowplow. New CIA officer William Kampiles went rogue, thinking the feds would applaud him for hawking state secrets. In another theme, the French Reign of Terror and Scotland’s disastrous Darien Scheme showed that political elites don’t always know best.

 

But some “dumb” ideas get the last laugh. NASA didn’t foolishly spend millions on a space pen. That’s a long-held myth. And when Friedrich Schliemann said he found the lost city of Troy… he found the lost city of Troy. It only took 120 years for the establishment to come around. In both cases, the emperor of consensus was found naked.

 

It's easy to be seduced by dumb ideas; I’ve made a number of thick-headed inferences myself. (I hope I’m not the subject of one of these shows. At least not this year.) My hope is that we can learn from the mistakes, the big mistakes, of others.

 

Thanks to producer Shannon, you can find archived shows at KENW.org. Type “dumb ideas” in the search bar. You’ll also find my best reference for further reading.

 

Drop us a line with any comments or show ideas to Por.Dumbideas@enmu.edu. That’s Por.Dumbideas@enmu.edu.

 

Tune in each week. I promise you’ll feel better about your own cognitive function!

 

I’m Jeff Gentry

 

Best reference:

 

Manser, M. H., Metzger, B. M., & Barton, J. (2003). 2 Samuel 1:19-27. The Holy Bible: Containing the Old and New Testaments with the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical books, New Revised Standard Version, Anglicized text / managing editor, Martin H. Manser; consultant editors, Bruce M. Metzger, John Barton. Oxford University Press.

 

Dumb Ideas that Changed the World copyright 2024 by Jeff Gentry. All rights reserved.

Host of Dumb Ideas the Changed the World
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