Sometimes we think we have the solution before we have understood the problem properly.
Sometimes we have a really great solution, but it doesn’t seem to fit any problem.
Sometimes how the problem is specified automatically diverts attention to certain ways of solving it.
“The most serious mistakes are not being made as the result of wrong answers. The truly dangerous thing is to ask the wrong questions.”
Men Ideas, and Politics by Peter Drucker.
Procrustes
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Procrustes was a son of Poseidon, an iron smith, thief, and innkeeper who lived in Attica. He offered hospitality to strangers on the sacred byway between Athens and Eleusis.
Procrustes would tie his victims to his iron bed and would force them to fit the bed by cutting off the parts that hung off the ends or by stretching those people who were too short.
The term “Procrustean” is used to describe situations where an arbitrary standard is used to measure success, while completely disregarding obvious harm that results from the effort
Example
Procrustean solution in statistics: instead of finding the best fit line to a scatter plot of data, one first chooses the line one wants, then selects only the data that fits it, disregarding data that does not, so to “prove” some idea. It is a form of rhetorical deception made to forward one set of interests at the expense of others. The unique goal of the Procrustean solution is not win-win, but rather that Procrustes wins and the other loses. In this case, the defeat of the opponent justifies the deceptive means.