I'm hoping that some people know the idiomatic phrase, "don't throw the baby out with the bath water", which is to say not to throw that which is good away with that which is bad.
However, isn't it equally important not to blindly accept the bathwater along with the kid, in a manner of speaking. I think that often enough people get into a mindset of all or nothing stereotypes, somehow assuming that if a person is wrong about one thing that they must somehow be wrong about everything else also, and likewise if they pay heed to only that which a person has right that they presume the rest of what they have to say entirely right. In real life, most people have the ability to be right about some things and wrong about other things. Going over the works of people like James Clerk Maxwell with his acceptance of caloric theory in knowledge absence of his other achievements and in light of our current knowledge of the kinetic theory of matter would tend to influence people not to regard Maxwell with due respect. Likewise, considering a novel by Ian Douglas, such as Star Strike, in absence of the knowledge of his other books of the same series might lead one to think that he's a creative writer, however upon reading more than one you'd find that they are all essentially the same novel with interchangeable labels for characters and factions.
19 Jan 2011, 8:48 pm
