Russell Lincoln Ackoff
(1919 - )

American systems scientist.

Science Quotes by Russell Lincoln Ackoff (1)

Common sense … has the very curious property of being more correct retrospectively than prospectively. It seems to me that one of the principal criteria to be applied to successful science is that its results are almost always obvious retrospectively; unfortunately, they seldom are prospectively. Common sense provides a kind of ultimate validation after science has completed its work; it seldom anticipates what science is going to discover.
— Russell Lincoln Ackoff
Quoted in A. De Reuck, M. Goldsmith and J. Knight (eds.), Decision Making in National Science Policy (1968), 96.
See also:  |  Common Sense (18)


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