The stock market is roaring ahead this AM on the basis of some ISM data that showed that manufacturing in August was expanding at a more rapid clip than expectations.
So naturally a number of bearish commentators are dismissing the figures as meaningless.
I don't know about other professions but this seems to happen a lot in my business. Once someone declares they are either bullish or bearish they have a hard time accepting data that might indicate a contrary opinion.
I remember reading an story about John Maynard Keynes, the great British economist who was also a very successful investor. He was in a meeting one time, and gave some advice that was different than he had given previously. When someone at the meeting pointed this out, Keynes was reported to have said:
"When the facts change, so do my opinions. What do you do, sir?"
This article from the New York Times describes Dr. Donald Redelmeier, an innovative thinker along the lines of the book Freakonomics (a fun read, by the way). Dr. Redelmeier is apparently not afraid to change his opinion if circumstances warrant:
Another Redelmeier philosophical pearl is “Do not get trapped into prior thoughts. It’s perfectly O.K. to change your mind as you learn more.”
In patient care, he said, he frequently does just that. “I think I know the diagnosis and start the treatment, then follow up and realize I was wrong,” he said. “I intercept a lot of my own errors at a relatively early stage.”
This, not surprisingly, became the basis of some classic Redelmeier research around raising physicians’ awareness of their own thinking — cognitive shortcuts that might lead to a diagnostic error.
Some of Dr. Redelmeier's research is whimsical (e.g. finding that Academy Awards winners live longer than those that are runners-up) but some of his other research on cell phones and driving have actually resulted in changes in the law.Scientist at Work - Dr. Donald A. Redelmeier - Debunking Myths of the Medical World - NYTimes.com
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