They literally used it in a Blockbuster Hindi movie called '3 idiots' as if it was a real story. A huge section of the population takes these urban legends seriously. But i guess as long as the message is decent , no harm done ?
> But i guess as long as the message is decent, no harm done?
I'm not sure the message is decent and no harm is done, since it seems to be designed to weaken trust in complicated engineering processes with its underlying "look at these idiots".
To the extent that it’s also often not, there are also modern parables about the dangers of corner-cutting. (NASA has three rather famous true-story ones.)
As a result, good engineers have a mental framework to identify both situations.
Right, but the concern isn't its serving as a parable for engineers. The concern is it serving as a parable for uneducated people about why they should rely on 'common sense' rather than experts in a given field. We just have to look at the modern US political landscape to see why that's a problem.
>The concern is it serving as a parable for uneducated people about why they should rely on 'common sense' rather than experts in a given field.
Well, often people should rely on common sense, rather than experts -- which more often than not are mere consultants with expensive solutions to non-problems to sell.
"Trust" is only good in an era of honest experts that don't look for a quick buck over science and rigor -- or that when they do there are functioning mechanisms in play to punish them. And our era has been increasingly getting less that (regressing to pre-50s levels of quackery), with many experts and policy advisors being nothing less than glorified lobbyists and salesmen (and that's despite their good qualifications)...
Like how tons of medical procedures are not needed and dangerous/expensive, but still recommended by clinics for the bucks...
Those lobbyists and salesmen and quacks tout common sense much, much more than they do science. The science is hard to understand, and non-emotional, the common sense is easy to understand, and can be very highly charged.
To take something that isn't currently in the political eye, but demonstrates this well, tobacco. "We believe in freedom. We believe in choice. You are free to educate yourself and decide for yourself; we don't need some nanny state deciding FOR you". Nevermind that it's a physically addictive product, being sold with ads targeting adolescents who are especially responsive to imagery and messages around rebellion, bucking the status quo, etc, and less long term thinking.
As to medical procedures...yes, the perverse incentives are in place to where extra tests = extra money. But the article you link even lists "Patients often insist that a medical provider “do something,” like write a prescription or perform a test." - this is "common sense" overriding expert opinion.
> Well, often people should rely on common sense, rather than experts
Sometimes, probably. It's definitely true that large organizations can overlook simple fixes due to the distribution of responsibilities.
However this story and maybe your response seem to fuel a certain "I won't believe what I can't see" attitude, which is extremely harmful (you'll be able to come up with examples yourself).
