[throwanem]

The point of Chesterton's fence is cost/benefit analysis. It's not saying the fence mustn't go; it's saying you need to know why the fence was put there in order to evaluate whether it's best removed or left in place - that is, your analysis needs to be informed by understanding of the status quo in order to be accurate.

Grandma's ham is a great example. It might have been some subtle trichinosis-related failure case that cutting the end off a ham reliably prevents, and it's a shame we had to lose your great-uncle Joe to find out about that. Or it might have been an issue of pan length. You can't know until you ask, so you ask if you can. If you can't ask, then sure, you do the best you can with what you have - I should like to hope there are no blind dogmatists here. But if you can ask, you'd be a fool not to.

[slavik81]

My only objection is the dogmatism. Asking why something is the way it is is obviously worthwhile.

Perhaps you just have more faith in people to behave reasonably than I do.