Equal Time
By Peter LloydIt's about time. In the name of innovation, invention, and creativity, I declare that all ideas are not equal and do not merit equal time.
Some creativity practitioners and brainstorming facilitators take the rule, "there's no such thing as a bad idea," way too far. Maybe they've helped make the American media so stupidly lazy.
Reporters seem to have discovered that if they simply allow advocates of opposing views to present their cases, they could appear to have completed an investigation. A fair and balanced investigation at that.
Not the case. It's media's job to go beyond serving up equal portions of opposing views. We expect them to inform us, to dig deep and come up with facts, to sort them out, and to help us understand what's gold and what's garbage. It's a facilitator's job to set guidelines between which all ideas in a brainstorming session must run.
Certainly we'd think it ludicrous for a talk show host to seat a flat-earth "scientist" opposite a geologist and give each equal opportunity to present their cases. Yet we see science magazines and TV programs broadcast so-called investigations into to relevance of the lunatic scribblings of Nostradamus.
The likes of flat-earthers, you might think, have all fallen off the edge of the earth. Not so. Visit the Flat Earth Society. Then take a stroll over to the case for a Hollow Earth.
Maybe I argue against equal time because another cold fusion claim has appeared recently or because I live so close to America's ridiculous Creation Museum. Nevertheless, while creative thinking benefits tremendously from considering all kinds of ideas, including the bizzarre and outrageous, innovators and inventors can waste a whole lot of time entertaining blatantly stupid notions.
One of the purposes of innovation and science is to get beyond superstition and error. They do, yet vigilance is required. Physicians continued to bleed patients long after it was clear that the traditional practice did no good and often more harm than good. Likewise, we are all harmed by entertaining with equal time and without appropriate condemnation the outrageous propositions of Holocaust deniers and creationists.
Let's support balance between open-minded consideration of all ideas and an intelligent editing and evaluation of misinformed and misguided nonsense from cranks and charlatans.
Peter Lloyd is co-creator with Stephen Grossman of Animal Crackers, the breakthrough problem-solving tool designed to crack your toughest problems.