There is a grain of sound theory buried somewhere under that towering mountain of unwarranted assumptions

From The Benefits of Business Experience by Megan McArdle.

An interesting topic that doesn't get much discussion - the contribution of experience to life learning as opposed to academic credentialing.

The increasingly mandarin elite, hygienically removed from the grubby business of scrounging for customers, frequently seems to have no idea at all what goes on in companies. Stop grinning, Republicans; I mean you too. Yes, too many liberals seem to believe that all infelicitous market outcomes can be cured by appointing a commission composed of really top-notch academics--during the debate over health care reform, the words "peer reviewed study" were invoked by supporters with no less touching a faith than an Italian grandmother performing a rosary for the salvation of the godless Communists. On the other hand, here comes the GOP claiming that entrepreneurship can be started or stopped with small changes in marginal tax rates, as if one were turning on and off a light. This is no less of a technocratic fallacy, even if, as with many technocratic fallacies, there is a grain of sound theory buried somewhere under that towering mountain of unwarranted assumptions.

The result is that companies usually get treated as a rather simple variable in a model rather than the complex organizations they are. For example, you see people reasoning from corporate behavior to efficacy: if fast food companies spend a lot of money on advertising, then said advertising must make kids eat more fast food; if hiring managers demand a college degree for positions that didn't used to require one, there must be a good business reason. "They wouldn't do it," says the argument, "if it didn't work."

I take the liberty of broadening her critical statement by a degree: This is no less of a fallacy, even if, as with many fallacies, there is a grain of sound theory buried somewhere under that towering mountain of unwarranted assumptions. I see this all the time - a granular truth serving as the foundation for completely unwarranted conjecture, all presented as indisputable truth.