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This article is from the Conservatism FAQ, by Jim Kalb kalb@aya.yale.edu with numerous contributions by others.

Why is tradition a source of greater wisdom?

It is a network of commonly accepted attitudes, beliefs and practices
that has grown up through strengthening of things that have worked
and rejection of things that have led to conflict and failure. It
therefore comprises a collection of habits that have proved useful in
a huge variety of practical affairs, and a comprehensive and
generally coherent point of view that reflects very extensive
experience and thought. Through it we know subtle and fundamental
features of the world that would otherwise escape us, and our
understanding of those things takes on concrete and usable form.

The usual alternative to reliance on tradition is reliance on theory.
Taking theory literally can be costly because it achieves clarity by
ignoring things that are difficult to articulate. Such things can be
important; the reason politics and morals are learned mostly by
experience and imitation is that most of what we need to know about
them consists in habits, attitudes and implicit presumptions that we
couldn't begin to put into words. There is no means other than
tradition to accumulate, conserve and hand on such things.

Other considerations also support the wisdom of relying on tradition,
if not specifically the wisdom of tradition itself. For example,
tradition typically exists as the common property of a community
whose members are raised in it. Accordingly, it normally unites more
than divides, and is far more likely than theory to facilitate free
and cooperative life in common.