Heidi's presentation last week on ANOVA was my first real introduction to a statistical analysis that I probably should have familiarized myself with a long time ago. Finally having these concepts explained to me in plain English (well, as close as you can get with this stuff, I suppose) made me realize that for years I've heard and read this term over and over without really understanding what it meant. This got me thinking about something a professor once told me: Everything we know can be represented by the inside area of a circle, everthing we don't know would be the infinite area outside of the circle and everything that we realize we don't know would be the circumference of the circle.
Therefore, when we know little, we often think we know nearly everything. The more we learn, the more we realize we don't know. Only those who know a lot realize how little they really know.
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2 comments:
i like that metaphor.
i suspect, though, that most people actually know a good bit more than they give themselves credit for.
and we spend far too much time worrying about how big our circles are relative to other peoples.
my $0.02. :)
I find the more I learn, the less I know. I think that is one of the reasons that I like hanging out with people who have had a very different upbringing from me or a different way of thinking so I learn new stuff. However, I guess I have something to learn from everybody.
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