Plants have been a lifelong passion; I have grown (and killed) more than 1,000 species. I would read, study and try best-practices for many areas of horticulture. For example, the practice of putting drainage gravel at the bottom of containers/pots was taught by nearly every source for most of my lifetime as a way of avoiding root rot caused by inevitable overwatering. This teaching was quite reasonable as we all ‘know’ that water drains through gravel far faster than through soil. Reasonable, but wrong. The facts, supported by ample research, are that the primary mechanism for water removal are evaporation and wicking, both of which are impeded by the ‘drainage’ gravel.
So, what has this to do with web-handling? We have many reasonable but wrong ‘teachings’ in our industries. The zombie-like myth of the spiral grooving spreader is perhaps one of the most common. This is an example of argumentum ad populum fallacy more commonly known as science by consensus. Some teachings are not ‘wrong’ per se, but have similar affects. In winding we have many including the ‘need’ for winding as loose as possible or the ‘need’ to taper. Most of these are over-generalizations known more formally as the dicto simpliciter fallacy and more commonly as over-simplifying.
How do you guard against reasonable but wrong? One way is to be well-read. Better, faster and possibly cheaper (since mistakes in our industries are expensive) is to literally go to school in Web-Handling. Even so, it is certain that some of what you hear will be incorrect. The problem is, you guessed it, another fallacy known formally as argumentum ad verecundiam. That is authority, especially inappropriate authority, is not infallible. So, how can you avoid being suckered in by reasonable but wrong? One way is to be well-read in critical thinking. Better, faster and possibly cheaper (since mistakes in our industries are expensive) is to literally go to school in Industrial Problem Solving that is being offered by AIMCAL, April 24-25 in Chicago.