Dancoland, Part 2: Just-So Stories
Teacher: Ok, let’s examine some of those things you told me about your village. I’d love to see what assumptions are behind them.
Student: Okay, so like I said. When I look at all of these building blocks of what I know - how fast we walk, how we farm our food, and how big our village is - I see some pretty clear cause-and-effect relationships. A) this is how fast we walk, leads to B) how far out we can reach each day, leads to C) how large a harvest we can collect, leads to D) how large a village we can support. If it gets any bigger, we go hungry. Pretty clear to me.
Teacher: Thank you for helping me see your thought process. You’re certainly more familiar with your village and your farming than I am. But I’m skeptical that this system actually works the way you’ve presented it. I have a strong suspicion that you’ve told me a just-so story.
Teacher: Whenever you hear an explanation for why a system works the way it does, with a neat, tidy conclusion, and you hear an answer that goes, “because it is just so.”
