… is from page 307 of Thomas Sowell’s 2002 collection, Controversial Essays:
People who pride themselves on having ideas often fail to understand that only after ideas have been filtered through real-world experience do we know whether they are right or wrong. Most turn out to be wrong.
DBx: Yes.
This insight helps to explain the deformity of much of today’s so-called “higher education.” “Higher education” is a heavily subsidized industry for producing ideas, but in this industry’s archipelago of many factories there are precious few sound means of testing the workability and relevance of these ideas in the outside world.
