Here is a question for you. It deals with the following hypothetical situation.
You are at a garage sale. You do not know the seller. You spot a vase that he/she has marked for sale. The price is $5 US dollars. However, you suddenly realize that it is an ancient antique Chinese vase and you know that it is worth at least $50,000 US dollars. What do you do?
- Buy the vase for $5 dollars and sell it for as much as you can.
- Tell the buyer that the vase is worth at least $50,000 dollars.
I have asked many people this question. A good friend of mine says he would tell the seller. He maintains that honesty and not taking advantage of people is the right thing to do. Another gentleman, whom I met at my three-day Jesuit retreat this year, proudly told me that it is a case of Caveat Emptor. He would buy the vase for five dollars and sell it for at least $50,000 dollars. Just as an aside, my friend who would tell the seller the value of the vase drives a used pick-up truck which he bought for under $10,000 dollars. I noticed my acquaintance at the retreat drove off after the retreat in a $75,000-dollar Porsche Cayenne. Not sure what to make of this contrast but it is interesting.
Many people have taken one side or the other on this issue. I was running the other day and suddenly I thought “I would buy it for $5 dollars, sell it for $50,000 dollars and then split the $50,000 dollars with the original seller.” The original seller would be happy, and I would be happy. I realized that with a little thought, I had come up with a win-win and not a win-lose situation. I wondered why I had not thought about this solution at first. No one I had described the situation to had thought about it either. It made me reflect about a number of battles that I have seen over the years while living in the Wisconsin North Woods. These “battles” have often become quite acrimonious with a great deal of animosity and bitterness between the combatants.
- The battle between Indians and locals over fishing rights.
- The battle between snowmobilers and cross-country skiers.
- The battle between power boaters and canoers.
- The battle between bicyclists and ATV riders.
The most recent battle up here in Northern Wisconsin is over CAFO’s (Concentrated Animal Food Operations) versus small family farms.
In each case, the situation plays out as follows. 1st. We have the hostility between the two groups or sides over some interests or goals. 2nd. We have a town council meeting called to help ameliorate the conflict. 3rd. Each side gets to air their grievances or make their claims for their group at the council meeting. 4th. The town council comes up with a solution that a:) neither side is happy with or b:) one side wins and the other side loses. Seldom if ever is there a recourse to a win-win scenario.
Now my ex-wife once explained to me before our divorce that there is not always a win-win solution. I concede that is the case. However, I will also argue that all too often we do not sit down with the other side and look for a win-win solution.
Further hampering the problem, is that these issues often become political. The Governor, Mayor or some other political authority will convene a committee to study the issue. The committee will seldom be knowledgeable experts or authorities, but instead will consist of a group of people with political influence or with a vested interest in a particular outcome (usually having to do with financial interests.”
A case in point is the recent committee that was convened by the Governor of Arizona to come up with a DCP (Drought Contingency Plan). After twenty years of ignoring the water problem in Arizona, the Governor was forced by the Federal Government to come up with a written plan to better manage the dwindling water supply in Arizona. Arizona’s Governor appointed thirty-eight members to the steering committee. It was billed as a “bipartisan” committee of citizens with a broad range of perspectives on the water issue in Arizona. The committee was divided into the following groups:
- Municipal leaders from cities and public works groups (8 members)
- Agricultural interests (6 members)
- Home Builders/Development (5 members)
- Tribes (3 members)
- Industrial (1 member)
- NGO (1 member)
- Miscellaneous (3 members)
- Legislative Leadership (4 members)
- Central Arizona Project Board Champions (2 members)
- Governor’s Office (2 members)
- United States Bureau of Reclamation (1 member)
Two co-leaders were selected to run the steering committee.
If you look at the backgrounds of the committee members, you will find mostly managers, lawyers and career politicians. There is a scattering of individuals with some background in conservation, but they are a small minority. Fifteen of the committee members are politicians. What you will not find in any noticeable numbers are biologists, conservationists, environmentalists or ecologists. The very experts that one would think would be more important to solving a water crisis than for instance five real estate developers. Speaking of real estate development, after the committee finalized their plan, the Pinal Council for Economic Development stated: “There is no reason to stop economic development in Arizona. We have plenty of water.”
Sierra Club lobbyist Sandy Bahr said that the plan, far from being groundbreaking, represents another run at “business as usual” for the state. As the Arizona version of the drought plan is now written, she says it’s propping up what she sees as unsustainable growth and unsustainable farming practices. Many critics have noted that the plan has little or no conservation component. It is a plan to subsidize more water drilling in the aquifer.
My contention is that we need win-win solutions. We cannot ignore economic development, but neither can we ignore our environment. We cannot sacrifice the future for the present or vice versa, sacrifice the present for the future. However, the solution to many of our problems requires a win-win format that is not governed by money and political interests. If our country keeps allowing the politicians and lawyers to make the rules, we are surely headed down the path of oblivion. There is an anti-intellectualism and anti-science bias in this country which I believe is gradually destroying our ability to make decisions based on science and facts.
“The citizen cannot cease to need or to be at the mercy of experts, but he can achieve a kind of revenge by ridiculing the wild-eyed professor, the irresponsible brain truster, or the mad scientist, and by applauding the politicians as they pursue the subversive teacher, the suspect scientist, or the allegedly treacherous foreign-policy adviser.” — Richard Hofstadter
I am working to prepare for a chess match with my neighbor. I happen to note in the paper the Fact that tomorrow will be a quarter moon. Does this Fact have any relevance to my playing chess? I don’t think so. Thus, I don’t really care that there will be a quarter moon. As far as my limited cognition or perception, I can see no relevance between the Fact of a quarter moon and my preparing for my chess match. I could be wrong. We can always mis-perceive the relevance of some information to an issue. This is often done in science and in police work. We don’t see the connection between two issues and we misjudge the outcomes. This provides one good reason for diversity and numbers in problem solving. You have less chance of being blindsided if you have a variety of opinions rather than just your own.
Let us look at another example where the issue of relevance is more salient. I am planning to go on a trip to England in 2017. I want to plan my trip for the best possible time of the year. I hypothesize that two Facts or Data points are very important to my planning. The first is the temperatures at various times of the year in England. The second is the rain fall. I found the ranges for this data on a weather site and used the information to plan my trip. Of course, some of the decisions anyone makes will depend on their own weather preferences. I wanted to minimize rainfall and also keep the temperature in a moderate range. What I call sweater weather. Thus, both these set of factors were relevant and important to my planning. I would call them Evidence to support the time of year that I decided to go.
On the other hand, if you like rain, you might have picked a different time of the year than I did. There were other mitigating factors which played a role in my decision making. These factors included costs for lodging during the year and transportation costs during the year. In general, off season times have better rates but are somewhat the worse for weather. Another factor was the value of the pound to the dollar. I considered the value of the dollar to the pound post Brexit but concluded that I did not have enough information to effectively evaluate the impact of this data on my decision. I am assuming that with the volatility involved in the situation, the value of the dollar might go either way against the pound. My best guess is that I will benefit if I go as soon as possible. The news has recently noted that after Brexit the value of the pound fell 14 percent against the dollar. This would mean I could get a significant cost advantage if I purchase anything in England. I am hoping this situation will continue until after my trip but there are too many variables at play here for me to use this information. I can only hope.
A more common example of relevance can be found by looking at police work. We are all familiar these days with what is called Forensic science. I am sure most of you reading this have watched some police show. As soon as a crime is discovered, the Crime Scene Unit (CSI) is brought in to collect Evidence. Keep in mind that everything at a crime scene is not Evidence. Only what may have a possible relationship to the crime. This can be a real problem. The CSI unit is going to be limited by their assumptions concerning what might be relevant. For instance, I doubt any Crime Scene Investigator will care whether or not the light bulbs are “bright” or “soft white” in the kitchen or bathroom. It is impossible to collect all the “Evidence” of stuff that might be related to the crime. Thus, relying on experience and training, the police investigators do their best to collect Facts and Data that appear to be relevant to the crime. The relevant Data and Facts are not just interesting, they are Evidence. The more they relate to the crime, the stronger the Evidence will be.
An eyewitness can provide Evidence via his/her testimony as to the events of a crime. The relevance of any eyewitness is high but the reliability of an eyewitness can be much lower. Second hand testimony is not as relevant as first hand testimony and is thus weaker Evidence. Testimony that might be compromised by some factors such as police record, bias, discrimination, physical disabilities might be relevant but will be weaker Evidence because the validity of the Evidence is suspect. That is why lab procedures and chain of custody is so important to police work. They may have the most relevant Evidence imaginable but if the validity of the Evidence can be comprimised because of sloppy police work, the Evidence will be useless.
It is seldom that findings of Evidence in police work or business are subjected to as much scrutiny as occurred in the so called development of cold fusion. Perhaps, since this was a finding of great scientific importance, it was held to a more rigorous standard than would occur in many other scientific studies. I am thinking in particular of findings in the health field, nutrition field and drug field. In each of these fields we often have much less rigor before results are posted or accepted. Business is even worse with advertisers spouting outright lies and fabrications. Little known phenomenon are routinely heralded as being highly reliable Evidence of the benefit of some product or service that someone wants to sell you. All kinds of spurious Facts and Data are then marshaled as Evidence to support the phony claims by Madison Avenue advertisers.
When I started working with Process Management International in 1986 after completing my doctorate degree at the University of Minnesota, I met the famous quality improvement expert and renowned statistician, Dr. W. E. Deming. Over the next seven years, he had the most profound influence on my life in terms of helping me to understand process improvement, statistics, quality and the use of Data to improve everything from widgets to health care. Under the influence of Dr. Deming, our company adopted his motto “In God we trust, all others bring Data.” Dr. Deming also said “Without Data, you’re just another person with an opinion.” So what is Data? 
If we understand what Data is, you have now entered the deep forest. However, we have a long way to go before we can get out of the forest. There are numerous obstacles along the way. Referring again to the concepts of validity and reliability, we must ask ourselves the same questions we asked about our Facts. Is our Data reliable and valid? How did we collect the Data? What method did we use to collect the Data? Are we taking a few samples each day for several weeks or are we taking a few samples for only a few days? Are we using a random sample or a stratified random sample? Different methods of collecting Data will lead to different results. And we are not even talking about interpreting the Data yet. For instance, when I worked at W.T. Grants cutting shades back in the late 60’s, I was told to make sure I took my measurements with a metal tape measure and not a cloth or plastic measure. The reason given was that it was easier to stretch a cloth tape measure and get a false result. This would lead to cutting a shade that was too large and would not fit.
Unfortunately, the scientific method is not infallible. It is subject to bias and disagreement over Data and interpretations. Even more problematic is that the scientific method is not a strong method when it comes to testing subjective theories that cannot be verified by Fact. For instance, “Is the Mona Lisa beautiful?” As stated, this is a subjective question that each individual will hold a different opinion on. However, if I asked: “Is the Mona Lisa the most beautiful painting in the world?” I could attempt to answer that question with a bit more objectivity. I could conduct a survey to see what percentage of people think it is the most beautiful. Subjective studies are not as strong as objective studies since they usually lead to results that follow a bell shaped curve. Thus, if we conducted the above survey, we would probably find that a certain percentage of people thought it was the most beautiful painting and a certain percentage did not. As in politics, opinions of beauty would be all over the place. This is why politics is so much more difficult to “Fact check” than issues like the atomic mass of hydrogen. Politics is a very subjective field that resists efforts to test and Fact check. Some examples that would be difficult to test with the scientific method would include:
Finally, if I have left you with some understanding of the difficulty with interpreting Data, I will have felt successful. The first step to knowledge is awareness of our cognitive limitations. We also need to be more skeptical when people present us with Facts and Data. My father used to say “Believe nothing of what you hear and half of what you see.” I still consider this good advice. There are too many fools and charlatans out there trying to convince us of things for a multitude of reasons that will benefit them and not us. Just as we would not walk down a dark alley in an unknown city by ourselves, we need to exercise caution when presented with Data and Facts. The more we understand the limits of Data and Facts, the more prepared we will be to make decisions based on Data and Facts that have a higher degree of validity and reliability. If the Data, Facts and Evidence that you base your knowledge on are not accurate than everything you think you know will be at best a half truth and at worst a total lie.
“The prosecution had expert witnesses that testified that the Evidence was often mishandled. Photos were taken of critical Evidence without scales in them to aid in measurement taking; items were photographed without being labeled and logged, making it difficult, if not impossible, to link the photos to any specific area of the scene. Separate pieces of Evidence were bagged together instead of separately causing cross-contamination; and wet items were packaged before allowing them to dry, causing critical changes in Evidence.” 
A validity error is when we are not measuring the right thing. IQ tests have been repeatedly criticized for not really measuring the intelligence of a human being or for being biased by many cultural Factors. Thus opponents of IQ tests argue that they are not valid measures of intelligence. A reliability error is when our measures are not consistent. The scale example given above illustrates the problem with reliability. Most people use a scale to weight themselves and most scales have problems with reliability. However, if you tried to equate your weight with your health, you would be assuming that the scale could also measure health and this would be a problem with validity. Scales cannot measure health although health might be correlated to some degree with appropriate height and weight.
Before we move on to looking at the concept of Data, we will look at two more problems with the concept of Facts. These are distortion and bias. Distortion relates to twisting the meaning of something. This can happen by taking something that someone has said out of context. For instance, I might be talking at a conference and say something in sarcasm such as “Yeah, I will definitely vote for Trump.” My words could be repeated verbatim and it would sound like I was endorsing Trump. It is difficult to detect sarcasm. To most people reading or hearing my words second hand, it will sound like I am a strong Trump supporter. Slick politicians and advertisers will often distort a Fact to make it sound like the Fact is supporting their position.
I watched several shows the other day in which Trump supporters were interviewed. People are as curious about his supporters as they are about Trump. Given the unquestionable fact that Trump is a greedy sexist racist hate monger, why would anyone support him? The assumed knowledge is that his supporters are a bunch of ignorant losers: people who are uneducated or at best semi-literate. However, the data and demographics do not entirely support this conclusion. Many Trump supporters are intelligent educated and literate people. These are also people who believe in the United States of America and care about their country. What then persuades or convinces them that Trump is the right person for the job of POTUS? His qualifications pose a questionable proposition that would seem to fly in the face of all known facts in the entire universe. This dilemma strikes at the heart of the matter. We do not know what to believe any more. What is a fact? What is evidence? What is objective data? Where can we find facts that are truthful (not really a redundancy)?
Several problems make the issue even more complex. In academia, we are dealing with a subset of life in which there is much less confusion over the truth since no one is deliberately trying to distort, lie or sell us anything. There may be stupidity, lack of knowledge and even ignorance by many scientists and professors but the greed motive is much less tangible. I am not saying it does not exist, but for most of my teaching career, I cannot think of anything I have ever tried to sell to my students and make a profit on. I can say with some confidence that this is also true of all the instructors whom I have ever known or worked with. The same situation does not exist outside of academia. The marketplace is a vicious jungle when it comes to searching for the truth while academia is a tame zoo in comparison.
Finally, we come to perhaps the biggest ruse of all. If anyone is searching for the truth, they will eventually enter into the Fourth Estate. This hallowed ground is defined as: “A societal or political force or institution whose influence is not consistently or officially recognized. Fourth Estate most commonly refers to the news media, especially print journalism or The Press.” 
n not possibly live without stuff.
Regardless of whether the media intentionally want to keep the race close or not, there is no denying that the candidate who is the most obnoxious, the most outrageous and the most sensational will garner the most press. Trump has been well aware of this and has continually manipulated the media into providing him billions of dollars in free advertising. The fickle public seems to swing from one candidate to the other depending on who they see in the news. Trump has undoubtedly benefitted from his ability to keep the press absorbed with his every utterance regardless of how inane they are. He can tweet at 2AM in the morning and be assured that Fox News will carry his tweet on the 7 AM morning news.
How then can we blame the general public, educated or not, of being uninformed or misinformed when most of our society is conspiring against them finding the truth? It is a trap that I have fallen into when I have railed against the stupid, illiterate and uninformed Trump supporters. Sadly, they are not to blame for their reliance on Trump to give them the truth. The have certainly not found it in academia or the Fourth Estate. I have some solutions to this issue but I do not have the entire answer to it. I do have part of the answer. It is quite clear to me that one must understand the difference between facts, data, evidence and the role of these three elements in helping to shape the truth. In Part 2 of this blog, I will go into the subject of Facts in more depth. In the following parts, I will cover Data, Evidence and Truth.
Aging Capriciously 