Knowing and Doing

What's wrong with this headline? "Nobel Prize for economics awarded to 3 Americans." So much brainpower, and the country's economy is going down the tubes. Come to think of it, the same case could be made in the case of the prize for medicine. Two of the three winners are Americans, and the U.S. health and health care are nothing to be proud of.

Facetiousness aside, this goes to show that knowledge, in and of itself, is not enough to ensure that the right things are done. You have to know what should be done, but, more than that, you have to be able to do it.

Comments

  1. Roberto Ariel FernándezOctober 21, 2013 at 10:49 AM

    ... which includes that you have to be willing to do it.

    I agree. Not only is knowledge not enough to ensure that the right things are done by government and private actors. It is not sufficient to guarantee that it will enter the "bloodstream" of society. Most people are oblivious of the most elementary but important, fascinating new knowledge, and it's worse when it comes to truly complex and relevant new knowledge. We have become mere consumers, mostly of junk (junk food, junk ideas, junk news, junk music, junk literature, junk TV). Meanwhile, the good stuff is mostly invisible, inaudible, not grasped by the masses. There's a price to be paid for that. We are already paying it, here in Puerto Rico, in the U.S., and elsewhere..

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