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MURPHY'S LAWS
and Others Reasons Things Go WrongPage 10
EXPERTSMANSHIPIf you find errors on these pages... it's to be expected
The Golden Rule of Arts and Sciences:
Whoever has the gold makes the rules.
Gummidge's Law:
The amount of expertise varies in inverse proportion to the number of statements understood by the general public.
Dunne's Law:
The territory behind rhetoric is too often mined with equivocation.
Malek's Law:
Any simple idea will be worded in the most complicated way.
Allison's Precept:
The best simple-minded test of expertise in a particular area is the ability to win money in a series of bets on future occurrences in that area.
Weinberg's Corollary:
An expert is a person who avoids the small errors while sweeping on to the grand fallacy.
Potter's Law:
The amount of flak received on any subject is inversely proportional to the subject's true value.
Ross's Law:
Never characterize the importance of a statement in advance.
Clark's First Law:
When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
Clark's Second Law:
The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible.
Clark's Third Law:
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Clark's Law of Revolutionary Ideas:
Every revolutionary idea - in Science, Politics, Art or Whatever - evokes three stages of reaction. They may be summed up by the three phrases:
1. "It is impossible - don't waste my time."
2. "It is possible, but it is not worth doing."
3. "1 said it was a good idea all along."
Levy's Eighth Law:
No amount of genius can overcome a preoccupation with detail.
Levy's Ninth Law:
Only God can make a random selection.
The Rule of the Way Out:
Always leave room to add an explanation if it doesn't work out.
Rule of the Great:
When somebody you greatly admire and respect appears to be thinking deep thoughts, they probably are thinking about lunch.
Law of Superiority:
The first example of superior principle is always inferior to the developed example of inferior principle.
Blaauw's Law:
Established technology tends to persist in spite of new technology.
Cohen's Law:
What really matters is the name you succeed in imposing on the facts - not the facts themselves.
Fitz-Gibbon's Law:
Creativity varies inversely with the number of cooks involved with the broth.
Baeth's Distinction:
There are two types of people:
those who divide people into two types,
and those who don't.
Runamok's Law:
There are four kinds of people:
those who sit quietly and do nothing,
those who talk about sitting quietly and doing nothing,
those who do things, and
those who talk about doing things.
Segal's Law:
A man with one watch knows what time it is.
A man with two watches is never sure.
Miller's Law:
You can't tell how deep a puddle is until you step in it.
LaCombe's Rule of Percentagers:
The incidence of anything worthwhile is either 15-25 percent or 80-90 percent.
Dudenhoefer's Corollary:
An answer of 50 percent will suffice for the 40-60 range.
Kamin's Sixth Law:
When attempting to predict and forecast macroeconomic moves of economic legislation by a politician, never be misled by what he says; instead - watch what he does.
Weileic's Law:
Nothing is impossible for the man who doesn't have to do it himself.
As the laws are presented on my weekly e-mail list I will add them here. Come back each week or see them first by sending an e-mail to murphy-subscribe@topica.com
If you have other Murphy type "Laws"to add please E mail me
