Define to confuse

I have often wondered whether definitions of complex issues don't just serve to confuse the issue. We sometimes know what something is until we try to define it.

Bob Sutton over at Work Matters calls this the "... folly of crafting precise definitions." He quotes a physicist friend, Larry Ford, who frustrates behavioural scientists with statements such as, "... there is a negative relationship between precision and accuracy."

This creates a dilemma for persons like me, who prefer concepts to precisely defined and carefully measured; and who like solutions to be evidence based. An approach that seems well able to manage the ambiguities of complexity can be found at Dave Snowden's Cognitive Edge. Their South African 'agent' is Sonja Blignaut at The Narrative Lab.