When we study the science, we encounter all kinds of Law. Sometime they surface with terms like Hypothesis, Postulate, Theory, Principle, Rule etc. In math we learn Axiom, Theorem, Lemma, Corollary and many others. In general, the definition of the terms is more rigorous in math. But in our daily life, the definition of Law has been abused often especially in the last 40 years. Have you heard about Murphy’s Law, Moore’s Law & Pareto’s Principle? Or Peter Principle, Parkinson’s Law, Count to Three Principle? If we examine these laws or principles closely, we find that they are far from laws. They are qualified at best as Adages, Rule or Guidelines. They can’t be proved rigorously & you can always find exceptions to the laws. They can’t even be qualified as hypotheses or postulates. They are just Rule of Thumbs. Let’s examine some of them. But before we dig in, let’s examine the definition of the terms & do some translations.
Theory: the principle on which a particular subject is based, 學說 (理論)
Theorem: a rule, especially in mathematics, that can be proved to be true, 定理
Corollary: an idea, or fact that results directly from a theory, 結論 (必然的結果)
Lemma: a proven statement used as a stepping-stone toward the proof of another statement, 引理 (輔助定理)
Law: a scientific rule that somebody has stated to explain a natural process, 定律
Principle: a law or a theory that something is based on, 原理 (法則,原則)
Hypothesis: an idea or explanation of something that is based on a few known facts but that has not yet been proved to be true or correct, 假說
Postulate: a statement that is accepted as true, that forms the basis of a theory, 假定 (假設)
Rule: a statement of what is possible according to a particular system, 規則
Rule of Thumb: 經驗法則
Guideline: rules or instructions that are given on how to do something, especially something difficult, 準則 (指導方針)
Adage: a well-known phrase expressing a general truth about people or the world, 格言 (諺語)
Murphy’s Law
"Anything that can go wrong will go wrong." Is this really true? No is the answer. It is almost true that given enough time & enough tries, it will happen. It is like saying, “I buy lotto & I will hit it eventually” or “I walk outside very often & eventually I will be killed by a thunder." So Murphy is not a law, it is just a Rule or Adage.
Moore’s Law
"The number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit has doubled approximately every two years." This one has been modified to 18 months instead of 2 years. Actually, the original one was one year, not two years. Now we know how accurate this one predicts. It is not a law, it can best be qualified as empirical formula.
Parkinson's law
"Work will always take as long as the time available for it." This one tries to explain or describes some human behavior. In many cases, it is true. But alas, it is not always true. Some difficult task can not be finished if there is not enough time allocated. This one can be used as a guideline for any project. This is especially true for annual tax return. Why? There are so many procrastinators that try to meet the deadline. You give them the deadline, so they just try to meet it. But it is also true that thousands of people sent their return well before 4/15 every year. Why? They just try to get the refund as soon as possible.
Pareto’s Principle
"The Pareto principle also known as the 80-20 rule, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes." It is equivalent to state, 20% of the effects come from 80% of the causes. Here the cause & effect are independent, they don’t need to add up to 100%. For example, 15% of people pay 90% of the tax in California. The interesting part of this so-called principle is the number 80 & 20, why not 30 & 70? Anyway, this is another way to explain some human behavior. You can hardly find any natural phenomena fit in this scheme. This one is best qualified as a rule applied to the area of human activities, but it is far from a Principle. The corollary of this rule is that 64 % of the effects come from 4% of the causes. Is it true or is it a fantasy?
Peter Principle
"In a hierarchy, members are promoted so long as they work competently." Sooner or later they are promoted to a position at which they are no longer competent, and there they remain, being unable to earn further promotions. The corollary: "In time, every post tends to be occupied by an employee who is incompetent to carry out his duties" or "Work is accomplished by those employees who are not competent." No wonder our world is a mess since the world is functioned in an incompetent way. This is another rule to explain the structure of our society or our economic system. Is it a principle? I don't think so. At best it is qualified as a low end of Principle. But it is not in the same league as Uncertainly Principle.
Most of these laws are from the management circle of business world. They are not thinking rigorously, rather very loosely. Like “Invisible hand (冥冥中有一隻不可目見之手)” & "Greed, for lack of a better word, is good", they lead to the chaos in the world of finance, economy, wall street & business world. It destroys so many lives & creates some monster banks too big to fail. The taxpayers end up holding the bag.
PS0: Count-to-Three Principle: If you don't know at least three ways to abuse a tool, you don't know how to use it.
PS1: 說, 論 & 經: 這三個字,堂而皇之. But they have been abused badly too. We have many examples (some of them are not qualified as called):
粒子說,波動說,波粒說,原子說,孔子說,聽說,細說,好說,胡說,佛說,併吞說,媽媽說,總統說,道聽途說
群論,民約論,人口論,國富論,资本論,重商論,相對論,量子論,君王論,進化論,演化論,唯心論,唯物論,海杈論,不服從論,边際效用論,天体運行論, 血液循環論
人論,典論,違心論,股市崩盤論,小金投資論,大乘起信論,命理預言論,興趣無用論,正統無視論,高談闊論
佛經,聖經,拜撲經,可蘭經,道德經,詩經,樂經,易經,水經,山海經,三字經,媽媽經,罗織經,月經,日經,神經
6 comments:
This discussion is eye opening. Most people without good scientific or logic training cannot differentiate the “laws” in mathematics, physics and biological or social science. Their accuracies are different. The key is whether a statement is true?
In mathematics, whether a statement is true is based on axioms (same as definitions, for example, a+b=b+a, (a+b)+c=a+(b+c) can be considered as axioms for additive operation, or the definition of “+” sign, or law of plus operation). When the axioms are accepted, all the theorems are true. (How can you not accept a definition?)
In physics, the mathematics axioms are replaced by laws (or theory) such as Maxwell equations. They are equivalent to (almost as accurate as) axioms. They have not been violated from all the experiments performed. Thus results derived from them are also true.
In biological and social science, the law’s are observations likely to be true such as “Power tends to corrupt,” or “「兔死狗烹」, or unlikely to be true, but can serve as a surprise, such as 「有意栽花花不發，無心插柳柳成蔭。」or a reminder, such as “Murphy’s Law.”
However, in our daily life, when we make a statement, we do not expect it to be 100% true. It is very difficult to make such statements. For example, to fly an airplane is basically physics, but a statement about its safety cannot be derived by to physics laws. Reality is too complicated. The best we say is that we are 99% sure that the flight is 0.99999 safe. What does this mean? Anyway, it means extremely safe.
To me there are two things we need to differentiate: laws (principle, axiom, theory, postulate) and theorems (lemma, corollary, result) deduced from them.
For good writing, we need to have many different vocabularies for the same thing. Thus law can be stated as“論”, ” 說”, “經” , (好說,胡說,媽媽說,總統說,道聽途說 seem not in this category). In the following statement: ：「我持此槊破黃巾，擒呂布，滅袁術，收袁紹，深入塞北，直抵遼東」, 破, 擒, 滅, 收 all mean the same thing, but using different words makes the sentence read better.
The law can be stated as “論”, ” 說”, “經”, the difference is the degree of seriousness. 說 is least serious, 說說,演說, 假說. 論 is more serious, 理論, 論述, 演化論. 经 is most serious, usually implies right or wrong & has moral content such as 聖经, 道德经. It also implies the work is so good that we can use them as a reference, such as 经典, 水经, 詩经. In serious discussion, users should follow the correct definition or meaning & use them accordingly. But in the commercial world or in our daily life, we tend to use them loosely such as 股市崩盤論 & 興趣無用論. They serve the purpose of 茶餘飯後餘兴節目. One thing I found interesting is the 80/20 Rule. If you believe it is close to the truth, you might as well stop any activity when it reaches 80% of completion. The reason is that it may not be worthwhile spending 80% of the effort to achieve just 20% of the desired result. For example, if you have 100% of time available. You allocate it in five 20% slots & work on five different projects. You stop each project when it reaches to 80% of completion, so you have time to do other projects. Or you just reach 80% completion a little bit slower since you use your time to do other projects. The end result is that you use up 100% of your time to accomplish five projects of 80% completion. The truth here is that you have actually 400% completion in total. In economics, it is called leverage effect, in engineering, it is called amplify effect. If you are a perfectionist, you spend the rest of 80% of time to finish the rest of 20% of the first project but don’t have time available to do the other four projects. The truth here is that you use up 100% of time to finish 100% of a single project, ie you achieve 100% completion. Depending on your 人生觀, you may choose the first approach or the second one. But common sense seems favor the first approach. It is much more efficient to do several activities at the same time instead of doing things in sequence. For instance, we pursue our career, get married, buy house, raise children, do investment all in the same time frame. We can’t do all of them very well, but we are satisfied if we achieve 80% of the result of each activity. In the end, we seem to fulfill our life without a lot of regret. So the good old adage, “Don’t be a perfectionist” does carry some meaning & weight in our life. The issue here is that how we can identify the 20% cause & work on it in a timely manner. This takes intelligent, imagination & wisdom. However, sometime it is quite obvious & insurance companies use it extensively, Statistics! For example, Arizona just past a law last week related to immigration. It causes a lot of protest in the country. If you take a look from the above (宏而觀之), Arizona just tries to use 80/20 Rule, since 80% of the illegal aliens are from Mexico. They just zero it in to do things effectively & get the situation manageable. In this case, they do know what that 20% of the cause (number of races) & sure they know if they zero it in, they can achieve 80% (number of illegal aliens) of the effect. This is a perfect example of applying 80/20 Rule. Is there anything wrong morally here? That is another subject reserved for another time. But to solve the problem effectively & make it manageable, it works obviously.
I do not see why Pareto's 20-80 rule makes sense. Usually the last part of the work is the hardest. It is so called, 行百里而半九十。or 功虧一簣. This law is quoted in other way that 80% of the work is done by 20% of the participants. Then we should check whether 80% of the benefits are paid to these 20% workers. If it is, it is fair.
Of the principles you listed, only Peter's principle makes sense to me. I read his original book, there were many convincing examples. As for the accuracy, Murphy's is the worst. We take small risks, such as fatal car accident, everyday. If anyting can happen will happen, then no one can survive beyond today.
Usually the last part of the work is the hardest. This is the reason you had better not be a perfectionist. Otherwise you will never finish anything at all. In the real world, you don’t have perfect service or a perfect product. 100% work is a goal you can approach (concept of limit). Since 80% of the work is done by 20% of the participants, it is wise to identify that 20% of the participants in a timely manner & hire them without wasting resources on the other 80%. Instead, we use the saved resources (money or fund) on other needed services. Ask yourself whether you want just a single perfect service from your local government or five different services with 80% satisfaction rate. Or ask yourself whether you want one perfect career without family, kids, hobby, travel, vacation etc. or 80% successful rate in all your career, family, kids, hobby, investment etc. If you work for Microsoft or Apple, you will know they will never release any products if they demand 100% bug-free release. Rather, they pass beta test (a little bit better than 80%) & release them. Let the mass find bugs if they can & they just issue some software patch or addendum to fix the problem. If you ever use PC with Vista operating system, you know what I mean. Of course, in some services involving safety, people demand so called zero tolerance that is equivalent to 100% error free. But in reality, there is nothing called 100% safe, it is just something people can dream of. But we can be certain there is always a high price to pay in this kind of service.
The disagreement usually comes from definitions. When I mention, 行百里而半九十。or 功虧一簣 (in well digging), it is not perfectionist, it is work done or zero. Whether this type of work is finished can be measured. Other type open-ended works, 100% or any percent are not measurable.
Back to your examples, I quote
"...whether you want one perfect career without family, kids, hobby, travel, vacation etc. or 80%successful rate in all your career, family, kids, hobby, investment etc."
Here, the 80% is so abstract, it is not only unmeasurable, but also unimmaginable. What is a 80% success family, career, kids, vacation? Can we define a 100% success career? If someone says that I have a perfect career, he is cursed as 「不知天高地厚」. There is no 100%, nor 50% or 80%. So go back to physics. Physicists never discuss things that are not measurable. I have great respect to this statement since the first day I learned it from my physics class.
You mentioned "If you work for Microsoft or Apple, you will know they will never release any products if they demand 100% bug-free release. Rather, they pass beta test (a little bit better than 80%) & release them." This is in engineering arena, if bug-free is 100%, how many bugs are allowed in 80%-passed beta test? The 80% here seems too linient, if we interpret it as a program can fail 20% of the times.
I sort of got carried away on the discussion. I never really get serious on these laws generated from the business world & so was the reason I wrote it for discussion. MarkYang was right when he said, “The disagreement usually comes from definitions”. Since these laws are loosely defined & subject to various interpretations, we have to be careful about the conclusions they draw. The one I particularly interested is the 80/20 Rule as its statement is very general: roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. Anyone can dream up a pair of cause/effect & try to explain why things behave that way. In my particular example, I just dreamed up the first 80% of the desired result (or goal) come from the first 20% of the effort (or work). Is this true or wrong? Like Murphy’s, yes or no, it all depends. But if it makes sense in a lot of situations, it is useful enough to a lot of people. Remember, here we are not talking about physical law. We are talking about “Business Empirical Law”. First we put it to test & apply to one of the most popular sport or hobby, Golf. When we start playing golf, it is much easier to get from 120 to 110 strokes for 18 holes. Then it is progressively more difficult to improve from 110 to 100, 100 to 90. Even for Tiger, it is extremely difficult for him to improve from 70 to 60. So to most people, they are just happy to get 80% of the result & stop at 20% of the effort. For me, I use the rest of 80% effort doing some other sports such as tennis, pingpong, bicycling, basketball etc. In the same token, I only use up the first 20% of work in each sport. In other words, I just used up the same amount of effort to accomplish 5 sports instead of one. Since I don’t play well but I get 80% enjoyment of each sport & end up with 400% of the total enjoyment in my life. If I just keep honing on golf to get from 100 to 90, it will take 80% of the effort or it might take forever. The consequence of this is that I don’t have time to pursue other sports & so my enjoyment index is less than 100%, far from 400% as in the other case. I also found that this is true to the computer software. We write a program to solve a particular (non-trivial) problem. It is about 20% of time we finish writing the program. But to remove some potential bugs, it may take another 80% of time. However, basically we can run our program & get the service right away, though we may only get 80% of the satisfaction. If you are happy with 80% service like in a restaurant or hotel, 20% of the cost sure is a good bargain. Now without tinkering on the rest of 80% effort, we get time to write another 4 programs to get solutions or services of another four problems with 80% of satisfaction. This sounds like a mediocre attitude toward life. But life is like investment, you had better put your eggs in several baskets instead of one. Now I got carried away again on the discussion. Please don’t get serious about the whole thing. These laws can only serve as guidelines or rules at best. I just try to apply Pareto’s Principle to our life for fun.
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