The distinction between the scientific and the professional is largely a distinction between analysis and synthesis. Professionals not only analyze (understand) situations, they act on them after finding appropriate strategies (synthesis). In business, they design products and marketing channels, organize manufacturing processes, and find new finan

Ever since, I think I have included that among my own selection criteria; intelligence shines through the eyes.

I learned that there is no use lecturing to a class unless the class is listening. And they will only listen if you are saying something that they think they can understand and that seems relevant. They will listen better if you talk LOUDLY. If you pace up and down, you can tell from their moving heads whether they are following you (like the crowd

In essence our failure was a vivid demonstration, which I have never forgotten, that theories, however plausible and “obviously” valid, can be destroyed totally by the obstinate facts of the real world.

From observing Elliott Smith I learned that being a decent person is terribly important, but being a “nice guy” is not important at all.

Time is the tyrant. One cannot be loyal to two occupations any more than one can to two lovers. Whenever I found that one of my hobbies was seriously taking attention from my research, I dropped it. That happened to chess, and then painting, in the late 1950s. In both cases, I found that I was aspiring to professional competence, which obviously wo

Now let’s return from gold seeking to problem seeking. Our metaphor suggests that one way to find a problem, and perhaps even its solution, is to try to solve some other problem.

Having spent much of my scientific life in such travel, I can offer one piece of advice to others who wish to try an itinerant existence: It is fatal to be regarded as a good economist by psychologists, and a good psychologist by political scientists. Immediately upon landing on alien shores, you must begin to acquire the local culture, not to deny

Bracketing satisficing with Darwinian may appear contradictory, for evolutionists sometimes talk about survival of the fittest. But in fact, natural selection only predicts that survivors will be fit enough, that is, fitter than their losing competitors; it postulates satisficing, not optimizing.