What would change his mind

Two farmers in Minya watch a neighbour lay drip lines across his field instead of flooding it the way everyone always has.

The first farmer doubts it. He says so plainly, and then he says what would convince him: if the neighbour gets the same crop from less water through a full summer, he will try it on one corner of his own land next year. He walks over in August to look. When the numbers hold, he does what he said he would.

The second farmer also says he doubts it. But ask him what would persuade him and there is no answer. The soil here is different. The neighbour was lucky. It might work for a year and then fail. Every result that comes in gets a new reason to set it aside.

Both men call themselves careful. Only one of them is.

Doubt is valuable. It takes some nerve to question what everyone accepts, and more nerve to change your mind when you find you were wrong. The useful kind of doubter names his standard before the evidence arrives, so that he cannot quietly move it afterwards.

Refusing to look is something else. It is comfortable and easy, and it is closed, because there is nothing that could ever open it. It protects a person from the work of changing.

The same two people sit in every market, every family and every business that is being asked to try something new. One is doubting so that he can decide. The other is doubting so that he never has to.

The second kind almost never admits it. Calling yourself a sceptic sounds far stronger than saying you would rather nothing changed.