No, we don’t think it is. We can probably say we know that it isn’t.
But it’s OK — actually scientifically appropriate — to occasionally look out the window and say, “Are we sure the earth isn’t flat? Because it really looks flat.” And then go through the exercise of convincing ourselves that it is indeed still round.
Occasionally, if infrequently, you should go back and convince yourself that you know what you think you know. The key is understanding when it makes sense to do it. If you do it too often, you spend too much of your time re-establishing all you know to be true at the expense of moving forward. Can you imagine having to wake up each morning and going through all of the data associated with the roundness or flatness of the earth?
Two inflection points that could cause the re-evaluation:
- Time — we look at it all again every so often just to make sure we really know what we know. Do new tools capabilities exist? Has more or more relevant data been gathered? Once a year. Once a quarter. What’s the time frame that makes sense for your industry?
- Event — did something just happen that should cause us to re-evaluate what we think we know?
Don’t be afraid of the “Is the earth flat?” questions. Everything we know today says for sure it’s round, but scientific rigor requires that sometimes you should reconvince yourself.
