WHY IT'S OK TO ASSUME. 5.9.06
I work with one particular client who seems to make a living telling people "don't ever assume", "never assume anything", and the huggably cheesy, "when you assume, you make an ass out of u and me". If you've ever been in a situation where Ronnie from Accounting admitted that he assumed someone else was going to handle blankety-blank issue, you may have found that your ego was jabbing you in your proverbial kidney and begging you to blurt out, "THAT'S why we never assume around here, Ronnie!". It's enticing, I know. It makes you look like a god of preparedness; a sage with greater hindsight than Mr. Miyagi. But fight the urge and bite your tongue, for you know damn well that you spend 99% of your life making assumptions.
You see, the 1980's Wall Street-esque tone of "never assume anything" seems to have forgotten about a little thing called inductive logic. Inductive logic is the thought process that says, "everything I know supports this conclusion, though I have no direct proof that my conclusion is correct." For example, you use inductive logic everyday to assume that your coffee will be hot, or that your chair won't shatter into a thousand pieces when you sit on it. Every day you sit in your chair, and every day it supports your weight. But there's absolutely no way that you can guarantee the chair will not break the next time you sit in it. And yet, you don't live in fear of your chair, testing it every day with slight touches and pushes before you sit in it (and of course, that would only be perpetuating your assumption anyway, as the chair could still break after you've run your "tests"); you sit your arse in it and move on with your life.
Need another one? You constantly assume that Earth's gravitational pull will remain constant, and yet your only basis for making that assumption is, "that's the way it's always been". Most people, including myself, have absolutely no idea how or why gravity works, but we have no choice but to assume that it will work, because we wouldn't be able to exist in this state without it. Assumptions, whether large or small, are what allow you to move on with your life, and get to the issues that you know require your attention and critical thinking.
So don't get on poor Ronnie from Accounting when he assumes something. Sure, you could ask him what line of inductive logic he used to come to his assumption; but if you're actually going to tell him not to "assume" anything in life, then make sure that the next thing you divulge to him is your plan of action for when the Earth's gravity stops functioning and we all start floating uncontrollably into the atmosphere.