Theory and practice

One of the many types of anti-intellectualism is the idea that theoretical understandings and training is useless. One hears claims like “business school is no substitute for actually running a business”. Similar things are said about most other types of schooling unless it is strictly practical, and the implication is supposed to be that, therefore, it’s useless to go to school and one should, instead, go get practical experience.

The claim as strictly interpreted is true: schooling and theory really aren’t a substitute for experience. But conversely, practice is no substitute for theory. Let’s take a tremendously practical endeavor: shooting a basketball into a hoop. Now, obviously, if you wanted to be able to do this well, you’d spend some time actually shooting baskets. There’s no substitute – no amount of sports physics can allow you to do this well without practice. However, if you really want to be good, you ALSO need to study the theory (or someone has to explain it to you). An understanding of the physics of getting the ball in the hoop will improve your practice and help determine correct form.

The same thing goes with business, only more so. Managing a business without theoretical background is fine and will work and the experience is valuable. And you might eventually figure out everything you need to know. But understanding economics and a theory of firms will shortcut your learning – you don’t HAVE to learn everything by trial and error.

Software engineering, too: a study of algorithms or the theory of object orientation or Turing machines won’t replace practical programming experience. But learning these things on top of experience will improve your abilities faster than a little more experience – it allows thinking about what you are doing in a structured, organized way.

My main point is this: theoretical understanding not being a substitute for experience is no argument against it. What I propose instead is that the best understanding comes from combining theory with practice and using then together.