honesty
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool
The rule
Words like strong, robust, and multibagger hide the fact that no number is given. So always ask for the figure.
Where it flips
An adjective is not a lie when a real number backs it and is easy to find. A short description can be a fair stand-in for a checked fact. The fix is to ask for the figure and see if it matches the word. Do not reject all plain summaries.
A confident adjective feels like information, but it carries no number you can check. 'Strong growth' and 'robust balance sheet' survive exactly because they never name the figure that would test them. The honest reader swaps each adjective for its number, and sees if anything is left.
A worked example
A note calls a company a 'high-growth, robust multibagger', and the words feel like a real case. Ask for the figures, though, and the growth is just one good quarter, while the debt has gone up. The adjectives were covering the missing numbers. [illustrative]
How to spot it
- ·adjectives standing in for numbers
- ·words like robust or strong with no figure
- ·a case that melts when you ask for the data
- ·praise that cannot be measured
Richard Feynman · Cargo Cult Science