User:Geo Swan/rants/What is special about Holland?
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Here is an anecdotes that illustrates the dangers of trusting in what seems "obvious".
When I was a kid I read an article criticizing educational practices. It contained a very memorable example where a misguided teacher asks her young students to tell her what was special about Holland.
Her students volunteer all kinds of answers:
| Wooden shoes? | Nope. |
| Windmills? | Nope. |
| Canals? | Nope. |
| Dikes? | Nope. |
| Cheese? | Nope. |
When her exhausted students all give up she says brightly, "No sillies. Everyone knows that the special thing about Holland is Tulips!
The answer of the misguided teacher, in this example, was basically arbitrary. Any of the answers the students guesses would have answered her question equally well.
Problems similar to this arise in the wikipedian's use of categories. The interpretation of which articles belong in which categories is arbitrary.