Theory in Practice

Theory Meets Reality In The Heartland [the broken link was removed] by Bill Waddell:

An old boss of mine was fond of saying, “There are few things in life more tragic than to see your beautiful theories murdered by a gang of brutal facts,” usually when I approached him with a hare brained idea about turning one of our manufacturing systems inside out.

Those who only think about theories don’t accomplish much. And those that don’t have theories don’t either. To achieve success, theories need to be put to the test and modified as evidence shows flaws in the theory.

“Knowledge is built upon theory… Rational prediction requires theory and builds knowledge through systematic revision and extention of theory based on comparison of prediction with observation.” (Page 102, The New Economics by W. Edwards Deming).