In a message dated 10/21/99 9:24:50 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
winfried.dressler@voith.de writes:
> How is it possible that great
> accomplishments like that of Deming are not only not understood but
> thought to be understood while it is far away from the original thought?
I don't think this phenomenon is unusual in human history. How many
variations on the lives and thoughts of Christ or Buddha or Mohammed
exist? Imagine great ideas as ripples on a pond. Eventually there is a
distortion of the original event that is seen as part of another set of
ripples. At some point of increasing complexity it is impossible for a
human to keep track of things - to track the ripples back to the correct
event. Certainly this same tendency applied collectively to groups will
produce wide fluctuations in understanding and beliefs.
-- Lon Badgett lonbadgett@aol.com "Isn't it funny how we get important ideas confused with each other. Someone - I forget now who it was - once told me why that happens, but I can't remember now what it was they said..." Emil Gobersneke, from The Gullible AmericanLearning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>