"Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance." That's a quote by George Bernard Shaw. I have written about George before, so I won't bore you with a paragraph about who he is. If you don't know who he is, a quick google of his name will give you more info on him than I would have wrote here anyway.
I have thought about this quote for quite a bit, and all I will say is that it is correct more than its wrong. If you don't know something, it can hurt you. You may not know that it is hurting you, but it ultimately can. Even so, false knowledge is worse because you fully believe that it is correct and actively work towards using that knowledge for your own benefit. That is where the problem lies. Because the knowledge is false, you do not realize that you are working your way closer and closer to a fall, and putting more and more of your time and effort into a losing proposition. I find that when I am uncertain about something, I go more slowly and look for pitfalls. Meanwhile, when I believe I know how to do something correctly, I work more quickly and more or less just look for the positive outcome. This is probably a poor example, but think about driving your car down the roadway. The road may be wet, but has not turned icy where you are, so you expect that it will also not be icy ahead. The air just isn't cold enough to make or icy spots, you believe. Meanwhile, up ahead, the road goes up in elevation and the roadway crosses a short bridge over a small stream or river. The wind has been blowing water up onto the roadway slowly and the wind is passing both over and under the roadway. Black ice develops, and all of a sudden your knowledge of a wet but not icy road is incorrect. Your speed, which was fine on the wet but warm roadway is now much too fast to be safe. With any luck, you will make it over the black ice without losing control. Unfortunately, not everyone knows how to react to a slippery roadway. Think about the massive pile ups you see on TV about the people who live in the south when it gets below freezing down there. It doesn't happen often, so they are not used to driving in slippery conditions. Then bang! All of a sudden they are seeing thirty-car pile ups. Their lack of experience on an icy roadway leads to property damage and injuries. Now that I think of it, this is likely an example of both false knowledge and ignorance! A better example might be when a boy who gets an "A" on a test in an earlier class, gives his answer to his friend who is taking the class later in the day. Since he has what he believes are the right answers, he doesn't bother to do any last minute studying. Meanwhile, the teacher has also changed the order of the questions on the test so that the boys answers are no longer valid. Without the friends help, the boy might have passed the test. Instead, he relies on his friend's answers and fails the test. His false knowledge of his friend's good result, and list of correct answers ended up being worse for him, than if he jut relied on his own answers. His ignorance may have been enough to get him a passing grade. Meanwhile, his false knowledge led to his failure. At any rate, I guess the moral of this story is to always do your best to verify the knowledge you are given, and always be open to learning. Ignorance is not bliss, and knowledge that is assumed rather than investigated can be dangerous. Use your brains and do your best to verify the knowledge you are given.
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