"A first step that must be advocated is to forswear attitudes that degrade the idea of science. We have already seen how the basic building-block of science, the fact, has been degraded to mean a verdict. We have noted how the word 'scientific' is abused in the context of management. (Not that managers need accept any blame for a general social phenomenon: we live in a world of scientific toothpaste, we are told to wash our hair scientifically, and there is a science of washing-up.) In between the basic, particular and the generic terms is an assortment of pseudo-scientific phrases that people use to comfort themselves. In a scientific age, a masquerade of scientific terms keeps up the spirits. And so there is a 'law of averages' a term used to imply that probabilities continuously adjust themselves to converge on a target balance of frequencies, which they do not. There is the 'calculated risk' a term used to mean that a risk is recognized but has not been calculated. Perhaps the real nature of science, and the capabilities it has to offer in the service of management (such as calculating risks, for example), will only be understood when the masquerade is over, and the scientific-seeming masks are dropped to reveal the intuitions underneath."
-Stafford Beer, from Decision and Control
