Does knowing ____ mean you understand ____?

If someone knows a certain thing does that mean they understand a related idea and/or concept? For example if someone knows how to speak English does that mean they understand proper sentence structure? Or, does knowing a set of programming APIs mean you understand the software development life cycle? This is not the case - at least in my experience - there have been way too many examples of people doing things without understanding the underlying concept/theory/principle. But wait isn't there a balancing act on this matter? Most people don't need to know sentence structure. I mean would you teach your four year old sentence structure before learning to speak and write? I don't think so.

Yet many people judge or will give people different amounts of clout depending on their background. I think this happens because of our primitive survival instinct (i.e. will this guy kill or help me?). How does this affect our day to day lives though? Since 99% of the time now we are hopefully pretty safe.

We also apply these types of judgments when we interview people for different jobs. When you think about it a job interview is basically a pro-longed snap judgment. Usually a potential employer is given 30-60 minutes to figure out if the candidate:

* Fits with the team
* Has the necessary skills
* Is not completely off his rocker
* Why they decided to come here and try and convince you to give them money

An employer needs to give some type of litmus test to the candidate to figure out the answer to these questions. This is where it gets challenging, IMHO. From my experiences in the technology field very few companies will test you on general information and/or skills that transcend a specific technology for example:

* What separates a good person in a position from the bad?
* How do they keep up with the latest technology in their field?
* If they have knowledge in related areas that will help them succeed?

Instead the majority of people focus on questions like:
* Do you know API X?
* Do you know technology X?
* How many years of experience do you know in X?
* How does one do X in technology Y?

What does this tell an employer? It tells them if they know X but does that mean they understand the underlying idea/concept? Granted an employer needs to ask the question first on if the candidate even needs to understand the underlying concepts for the particular job. We will make the assumption that this is a concern and they should know the concepts. This means that knowing a certain technology doesn't mean a candidate knows specific concepts. Does that mean people should go off and start learning all the underlying concepts and not focus on a specific thing? I don't think so, if everyone did that nothing would ever get done and we would be a bunch of philosophers :).

So, just remember next time you are evaluating someone or you think that person is "smart" do you believe that because they know a certain X or because they have proven that they understand an underlying concept. Because in the long-term knowing those underlying concepts or ideas will pay off in spades over knowing a certain X.

Related Links: here, here