The Life Span of a Bad Idea

As a project manager, I spend a lot of my time "herding cats" as they say:  corralling Information Holders with Decision Makers into one room so they can tell Operationalizers what to do to make it all happen.  My favorite part of this exercise is when the combination is just right, and the team starts to feed off itself and gets really creative about problem solving.  Depending on the meeting, it's my job to moderate and add gasoline or cold water as needed.  I always struggle with the cold water part.  When I hear hooves, I think "zebra" not "horse" and am deeply sympathetic towards not-obvious solutions.  Still, when it's time to call it quits on a bad idea, it's usually because of some operational issue (costs too much, lack the technology, not enough manpower), and not because of anything personal or political.

For school, I was reading about the yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia in 1793.  The American Revolution had been supported by France and Louis XVI, but when he was executed a number of people from France and the French Indies immigrated to the US and into Philadelphia...right as the epidemic was gaining steam.  This led a two disparate beliefs about the source of the fever.  Federalists (pro-Hamilton, anti-French) believed it was an imported disease (i.e., brought by French immigrants).  Republicans (pro-Jefferson, pro-French) believed it had a local cause due to poor sanitation (think "miasmata" and "effluvia").  At an impasse, actions were take on behalf of both theories:  immigrants were quarantined and the city organized better sanitation.  Win-win, right?

There were also two schools of medical treatment for the fever: bleeding + mercury or quinine bark + wine.  The bleeding treatment was championed by a preeminent Federalist doctor.  Hamilton, in a misguided attempt to show his support behind his doctor friend, politicized the treatment issue with an op-ed piece very complementary of the doctor and the treatment.  Suddenly, it became a Federalist thing.  When other doctors tried to declaim the bleeding treatment, they were labeled as pro-Republican and anti-Federalist.  The problem with this conflict was that the bleeding treatment required the doctor to "draw an amount of blood which we know today to be in excess of the quantity possessed by most people."*  But, because it had become a political issue and was no longer a medical issue, doctors and patients couldn't step back from the bleeding theory or switch to quinine bark without signaling disloyalty towards Federalists and favor for the Republicans.  Dumb, right?

It got me thinking about the life span of bad ideas.  What's the tipping point between exploring an idea and beating a dead horse? (<-to bring back the equine metaphor)  When have you persisted in something after it was out of favor (poor fashion decisions, excluded)?

*Pernick, MS. (1972) "Politics, Parties, and Pstielence: epidemic Yellow Fever in Philadelphia and the Rise of the First Party System." William and Mary Quarterly, 29(4): 559-586.