Predictability requires controlling variables, so heterogeneity defies guaranteed outcomes.

Evidence

Heterogeneous dispositions thus express both a variety of dispositions and a disposition to variety. They are dispositions of or towards openness, with no guarantees of outcome, stability, even predictability. Heterogeneities make obvious that no guarantee is foolproof, no security inevitable or for that matter lasting. If predictability is guaranteed only by controlling the variables, the challenge of the heterogeneous is to serve always as a reminder that variables themselves are, well, variable. Heterogeneities offer an antidote to the conceit of holding things constant, to the arrogance of control. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1895

Categorization

• CANDY: ‘Heterogeneities offer an antidote to the conceit of holding things constant, to the arrogance of control’ — punchy one-liner about the folly of certainty.
• XREF: connects to: Algorithmic prediction markets fail yet their real achievement is managing complexity. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities: Living with…, 645; Guaranteed prediction products require causal knowledge gained through experiments — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 931; Complex adaptive systems make the pretense of locating an optimal regulatory outcome deeply unwise. — Douglas A. Kysar, Regulating from Nowhere: Environmental…, 264