" Assumption is the enemy of curiosity and can cause people to misread each other, breeding prejudice -- or war. Assumption can poison a democracy with sleepy citizens who don't probe beyond slogans. Assumptions about nature can bring destruction to homes built precariously on mountainsides, or wash away lives by the thousands in a tsunami. "

Most people spend more time assuming than observing - or asking. And then things go wrong.

But what makes me froth at the mouth is the subsequent inability of those doing the assuming to see that not only were the assumptions themselves wrong, but that the very act of assuming made failure more likely.

There is a strong prejudice to declare the present inevitable. It wasn't.