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Who is able to shoot a thousand buffalo to prove any theory? Because Bubba dropped a buff with a geewiz bullet and a 6" twist doesn't mean crap.

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Boy Will, you could not have said it any better. This is a little off topic, but you just touched on one of my pet peeves. Not a one of us could ever do enough of XYZ to be able to draw any meaningful conclusions. In fact, if a person does something only a limited number of times, that can actually influence his thinking more toward being wrong than being right. That is why I can't stand it when I see people debating an issue, and one person asks, "..well, have you ever done such and such?" That's not logical and it's not relevant - even if he has done it, NEITHER ONE of them has done it "enough" to be able to draw any logical conclusions. In order to draw a logical conclusion, you GOTTA study A LOT of cases from a large enough pool of samples. That means you gotta study a lot of cases besides your own. No one individual's experiences are any more conclusive that anyone else's. You have to look at something that is big enough to be representative of the whole picture. As an example, I used to always say that just because Billy drives to work one morning and hits all green lights, does not mean that every light in town is green - but I like your example better, with Bubba and his geewiz bullet! That one experience could not only fail to lead Bubba in the right direction, but actually steer him in the wrong direction. Limited experience can actually be worse than no experience. At least the person with no experience has not been biased the wrong way because of a couple of flukey incidents. The guy with no experience is a lot more likely to at least start out impartial than the person with limited experience. This is not to say that the person with limited experience is necessarily wrong all the time - It just means his own limted experience is not relevant because it cannot be considered as "proof" of ANYTHING.

Any time I am debating a topic, you will NEVER see me make the HUGE mistake of assuming that I know more about the issue than the other person just because I have more "personal" experience on the matter. Like you said, my own limited experiences "don't mean JACK!" There have been too many times in my life when I thought I knew something about something just because I had done it a few times, and then was humiliated later to learn the hard way that I didn't know crap about it. I will never again ask someone how many times they have done XYZ, as evidence that I am right and they are wrong.

I like the way you put that so much, I should adopt that as my new signature line. Good job, Will!

OK, I'll get off my podium now.

Ingwe

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Learn from other people's mistakes - you can't live long enough to make them all yourself.

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The guy with no experience is a lot more likely to at least start out impartial than the person with limited experience.

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The guy with no experience is a lot more likely to at least start out impartial than the person with limited experience. -------



It's interesting that you mention this. I definatly agree that there is a lot of truth to this statement. At least when teaching beginners. For example, I've found woman to be more open to learing the basics of shooting quicker then men. It seems that this might be because the guys have all played "cops and robbers"/"cowboys and indians" as kids, and thus have many misconceptions/bad habits when it comes to handling a firearm. Not to mention all the BS that is seen on TV and in the movies... A blank sheet is much easier to start with.

Erik D.

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You both are absolutely right in your opinion a person who has NO experience on any subject will be more open to learning properly, if tought properly!

The problem with the opinion, in this context,mention in Ingwe's post is, however, the person with just opinion on a subject, not backed by experience in that subject, may seem quite reasonable to him. However, when his opinion is expressed as fact, to people who DO HAVE experience on that subject, and know his theroies to be wrong, is where the problem lies! Example: I had a man carrying a ROAHM .22 lr pistol that cost about $29, tell me had had it to protect him from bears. When I told him to wake me, and let me climb a tree, before he shot a bear with that thing, and pissed him off! He told me that if you just keep shooting him in the chest, pointing at his own neck where it joined his chest, it would kill him! NOW, here is a man that had a preconsieved idea, that was about to get him killed, if he tried it. First he had no idea what he was talking about,with a 22 lr, nor did he know anything about what is needed to stop a mad bear! This doesn't mean that if he didn't already have these misconceptions, he could be not tought properly, but with his ideas, he already had his mind made up, about something he knew absolutely nothing about! Addtionally, he was telling this idea as fact, to someone who knew better. This amounts to the inexperienced studant, teaching the teacher!

Untried theory doesn't kill bears,but in this case, it might have killed my friend, simply because he was acting on what he thought, not what he knew! There's pleanty of truth in the old saying EXPERIENCE IS THE BEST TEACHER

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..........Mac >>>===(x)===>
DUGABOY1, and MacD37 founding member of DRSS www.doublerifleshooterssociety.com
"If I die today, I have had a life well spent, for I've been to see the Elephant, and smelled the smoke of Africa!"

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