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NancyLebovitz comments on Man-with-a-hammer syndrome - Less Wrong
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I think there's another defense against "everything looks like a nail" syndrome-- associate with annoying people who ask you about counterexamples.
Sometimes, when other people probe me, I come up with a face-saving rationalization - it's not rational, but I know I do it.
A group of counterexample-offering people might bring someone out of it - but they might also armor the IDEA unusually well with clever rationalizations.
could you elaborate on your last point please? I can't parse it.
A person "Pat" has a clever idea "X". A friend of Pat's spots a flaw "f1" in X, and explains the flaw to Pat. Pat, in a face-saving move, rationalizes f1 using excuse "e1". Another friend tries to point out another flaw "f2", Pat adopts excuse "e2". ... Eventually, due to the helpfulness of friends, Pat has ready-made answers to essentially every criticism of the amazing idea, and is stuck.
I think this "face-sensitivity leads to polarization and entrenchment" phenomenon is one of the major problems with most current forms of combining human intelligence into teams more capable than their components.
Wikipedia's mostly-anonymous cooperation seems like a step in the right direction, as do various forms of "wisdom of crowds" cooperation, including Hanson's prediction markets and Netflix Prize-style blending of software experts.
You hit this one on the head (haha) - find one of those "WELL WHY DON'T YOU JUST..." types and you'll be back to reality shortly. Try not to hit them with a hammer.