An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher. The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exaulted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Niether its pipes nor its theories will hold water.

J. Gardner on the subject of Competence
in Peters LJ, Why Things Go Wrong, Allen and Unwin, 1985