In our recent appearance
on
The National Geographic Doomsday Preppers
in
critique of Ark Two -
"The Experts"
said:
Russia and the US are working to reduce
the
nuclear threat.
I am certainly not an expert -
but
President John Fitzgerald Kennedy said:
”Ever
since the longbow,
when man has developed new weapons
and
stockpiled them,
somebody has come along and used them.
I
don’t know how we can escape it
with nuclear
weapons.”
The following is a true
although
simultaneously
a somewhat tongue in cheek view
of
the value of 'experts'.
"The bomb will never go
off.
I speak as an expert in explosives."
--
Admiral William Leahy,
US Atomic Bomb Project.
"There is no likelihood
man can ever
tap the power of the atom."
--
Robert Millikan,
Nobel Prize in Physics, 1923.
"I think there is a world
market for maybe five computers."
-- Thomas
Watson,
chairman of IBM, 1943.
"I have traveled the
length
and breadth of this country
and talked with
the best people
and I can assure you
that data
processing is a fad
that won't last out the year."
--The
editor in charge of business books
for Prentice Hall,
1957.
"But what is it good
for?"
-- Engineer at the Advanced Computing
Systems
Division of IBM, 1968,
commenting on the
microchip
"640K ought to be enough
for anybody."
-- Bill Gates, 1981
"This telephone has too
many shortcomings
to be seriously considered
as a
means of communication.
The device is inherently of no
value to us."
-- Western Union internal memo,
1876
"The wireless music
box
has no imaginable commercial value.
Who would
pay for a message
sent to nobody in particular?"
--
David Sarnoff's associates
in response to his urgings for
investment
in the radio in the 1920s
"The concept is
interesting and well-formed,
but in order to earn better
than a 'C,'
the idea must be feasible."
--
A Yale University management professor
in response to
Fred Smith's paper
proposing reliable overnight delivery
service.
(Smith went on to found
Federal Express
Corp.)
"I'm just glad it'll be
Clark Gable
who's falling on his face
and not Gary
Cooper."
-- Gary Cooper on his decision
not to
take the leading role in
"Gone with the Wind."
"A cookie store is a bad
idea.
Besides, the market research reports say
America
likes crispy cookies,
not soft and chewy cookies like you
make."
-- Response to Debbi Fields' idea
of
starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies.
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"Heavier-than-air flying
machines
are impossible."
-- Lord
Kelvin,
president, Royal Society, 1895.
"If I had thought about
it,
I wouldn't have done the experiment.
The
literature was full of examples
that said you can't do
this."
-- Spencer Silver on the work
that
led to the unique adhesives
for 3-M "Post-It"
notepads
"Drill for oil?
You
mean drill into the ground
to try and find oil?
You're
crazy!"
-- Drillers who Edwin L. Drake
tried
to enlist to his project
to drill for oil in
1859.
"Stocks have reached what looks like
a
permanently high plateau."
-- Irving Fisher,
Professor of Economics,
Yale University, 1929.
"Airplanes are
interesting toys
but of no military value."
--
Marechal Ferdinand Foch,
Professor of Strategy,
Ecole
Superieure de Guerre, France.
"Everything that can be
invented has been invented."
-- Charles H.
Duell,
Commissioner, US Office of Patents, 1899.
"The super computer is
technologically
impossible.
It would take all of the
water that flows
over Niagara Falls to cool the
heat
generated by the number
of vacuum tubes
required."
-- Professor of Electrical
Engineering,
New York University.
"I don't know what use
any one could find
for a machine that would make copies
of documents.
It certainly couldn't be a feasible
business by itself."
-- the head of
IBM,
refusing to back the idea,
forcing the inventor
to found Xerox.
"Louis Pasteur's theory
of germs
is ridiculous fiction."
--
Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology
at Toulouse, 1872.
"The abdomen, the chest,
and the brain
will forever be shut
from the
intrusion
of the wise and humane surgeon."
--
Sir John Eric Ericksen,
British surgeon,
appointed
Surgeon-Extraordinary
to Queen Victoria 1873.
"There
is no reason anyone would want
a computer in their
home."
--Ken Olson, president,
chairman
and founder of
Digital Equipment Corp.,
1977.
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I certainly
don't want to denigrate
the value of expertise.
In
our highly technological world
we greatly rely upon
it.
Nevertheless,
when you have listened to
the 'experts'
you must still make up your own
mind.
Sometimes your life may depend upon it.
Peace
and love,
Bruce
DawnSayer@webpal.org
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