Sunday 6 December 2009

A thought for a Sunday

"The mind likes a strange idea as little as the body likes a strange protein and resists it with similar energy. It would not perhaps be too fanciful to say that a new idea is the most quickly acting antigen known to science. If we watch ourselves honestly we shall often find that we have begun to argue against a new idea even before it has been completely stated".

Wilfred Batten Lewis Trotter (1872-1939)

5 comments:

NobblySan said...

So, the mind hates new ideas, does it?

I'm not sure I fancy the idea of that!

Errrr.....

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
NobblySan said...

Too right, Andy.

It's always struck me as a an inbuilt defence mechanism; to immediately mistrust anything new that looms on the horizon - be it something physical or a novel thought.

This seems even more pronounced, when there is agroup involved. Almost every orgamisation I've ever been associated with has resisted new concepts or change, even when faced with evidence that it will improve things.

Andy Holroyd said...

Inbuilt, yes I think so. The human mind seems to be very adept at pattern recognition. It's better to run from the leaves which look like a tiger than to miss the real one and be lunch.

Andy Holroyd said...

And corporate behaviour can often be swayed by the leaf-tiger seer!