Unfucking Believable !!!!

21 Jul 2023 7 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , ,

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New Florida standards teach students that some Black people benefited from slavery because it taught useful skills — ABC News

 

Florida history lesson: Slavery as an unpaid internship? Tampa Bay Times

 

The standards, which were blasted by a statewide teachers’ union as a “step backward,” were approved Wednesday by the State Board of Education.

 

How could anyone calling themselves an educator have approved a piece of crap like these new history standards?  There should be a special place in Hell for anyone with so little professional integrity than they would cave in on principles and truths to support DeSantis’s racist agenda.  

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The following information puts a lie to the idea that slaves felt any benefit from the South’s “Peculiar Institution.”  Only racists, liars and idiots believe or try to sell the idea that slaves wanted to exist in such an institution.  The following information points out how totally idiotic is the propositions advanced by supporters of Florida’s new history standards.  

“Numerous slave rebellions and insurrections took place in North America during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. There is documentary evidence of more than 250 uprisings or attempted uprisings involving ten or more slaves. One of the first was at San Miguel de Gualdape, the first European settlement in what would become the United States. Three of the best known in the United States during the 19th century are the revolts by Gabriel Prosser in Virginia in 1800, Denmark Vesey in Charleston, South Carolina in 1822, and Nat Turner’s Slave Rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia, in 1831.

Drapetomania was a supposed mental illness invented by American physician Samuel A. Cartwright in 1851 that allegedly caused black slaves to run away. Today, drapetomania is considered an example of pseudoscience, and part of the edifice of scientific racism.

Slave resistance in the antebellum South did not gain the attention of academic historians until the 1940s, when historian Herbert Aptheker started publishing the first serious scholarly work [27] on the subject. Aptheker stressed how rebellions were rooted in the exploitative conditions of the Southern slave system. He traversed libraries and archives throughout the South, managing to uncover roughly 250 similar instances.” — Wikipedia

Maybe we should start an internship program for White students where we beat and whip them.  Keep them locked up in chains.  Rape their wives and lovers.  Send their children away.  Starve them when they don’t study or work hard enough.  We can see how much this “motivation” helps them to learn “useful” life skills. 

Oh No! Not Another Environmental Organization

10 Aug 2022 6 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

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It seems like every time I turn around, I find another environmental organization that is on the front lines of the war against something or other.  Some are out to address water shortages, some are fighting the fossil fuels industry, and some are advocating for more clean solar energy.  They are all great causes.  I shake my head though and wonder how come I have never heard of this organization.  I am always amazed to find yet another non-profit fighting the “good” fight for climate change.  No climate deniers at these organizations.

Today, I went to a recently discovered environmental website and lo and behold, they have a staff of at least a forty people.  The staff seems to be divided between what I would call admin type people, lawyers, and some environmental scientists.  This particular site seems to be about fifty percent lawyers.  It is not unusual to find lots of lawyers on these sites.  The cynic in me wonders whether or not they could find a higher paying job in corporate America or at least on the Trump defense team.  The numbers of staff at these organizations can range from as few as two staff members to as many as fifty including interns and part-time volunteers.  Most of these environmental organizations will have a great looking website with tabs like this:

ABOUT   ACTION   PROGRAMS   NEWSROOM   PUBLICATIONS   SUPPORT

Go to the ABOUT tab and you will  probably find a drop-down menu that looks like this:

  • Mission
  • Our Story
  • Meet the Staff
  • Board of Directors
  • Publications
  • Jobs and Internships
  • Contact Us
  • Support Us

What am I griping about you may ask?  Why my obvious cynicism?  The management consultant in me is buzzing with the following questions:

  1. Why are so many organizations trying to do the same thing?
  2. Why so many lawyers on the staff at these organizations?
  3. Great publications and research but how come I never heard of this organization?
  4. With a sound mission and team and so many other organizations fighting for climate change, how come the best we can do is Biden’s latest bill to fight climate change?
  5. How come the climate keeps getting worse?

Please allow me to explain or at least defend my critique of these well-meaning groups in terms of the above questions.  If you do not agree, great.  Send me your reasons and logic and I will post them in my comments section or simply post it yourself.  Lets go through each of my questions one at a time.

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  1. Why are so many organizations trying to do the same thing?

In business and industry, we have a law of efficiency that abhors needless redundancy and duplication.  This law can lead to greater efficiency through economies of scale but can also lead to lack of innovation and inefficient monopolies.  Proponents of this law advocate for competition as a way of preventing these disadvantages.  However, when we talk about non-profits, we are dealing with the proverbial “horse of a different color.”  In this case, I can see more disadvantages than advantages from having so many organizations attempting to address the same problem.  For instance:

  • Wasted time spent on fund raising
  • Duplication of grants
  • Duplication of effort
  • Lack of leverage due to small size
  • Wasted money spent on equipment, offices, and administrative staff

It would really be interesting for these organizations to publish their financial reports and show a breakdown like many charities do.  I would like to know how much money goes directly to program goals versus support and infrastructure.

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  1. Why so many lawyers on the staff at these organizations?

I admit a bias here.  We have too many lawyers in this country.  In my work with organizations, lawyers were the most inefficient part of the companies that I worked with.  They blocked change with nitpicking details that were too often ridiculous and superfluous. They drove up costs with their legal fees and contributed not one red cent to the bottom line.  I hated to work for companies that had a large legal staff because I knew they would always try to find reasons “NOT” to do things rather than to change the existing status quo.  Lawyers seem to exist on the premise that it is safer to do nothing than to take calculated risks and do something.  Any time I see an organization with lots of lawyers, I see lots of overhead costs and a tendency to oppose change.

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  1. Great publications and research but how come I never heard of this organization?

Most of the time, I find my way to these environmental organizations via some article that one of their staff has posted.  For instance, the recent article in the Guardian (Landmark US climate bill will do more harm than good, groups say) led me to the following five environmental groups:

  • Taproot Earth Vision
  • Center for Biological Diversity
  • Environmental Justice Coalition
  • Sovereign Iñupiat for a Living Arctic
  • Climate Justice Alliance

I found the article interesting since it supported my belief that the Biden bill made to many concessions to the fossil fuel industry.  In the article, spokespersons for each of these five organizations echoed my concerns about the Biden bill.  In some respects, they are whistling in the wind as much as I am.  Many of my blogs deal with the problems of growth versus development, sustainability, climate change and water shortages.  I am a choir of one impacting maybe 100 or so readers of my blogs who are probably already believers in what I am preaching.  I too am guilty of not reaching the tornado blown, flood inundated, drought ridden, heat exhausted victims of climate change.

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  1. With a great mission and team and so many organizations fighting for climate change, how come the best we can do is Biden’s latest bill to fight climate change?

Most of these environmental organizations have some great people on their staffs.  Dedicated and wise scientists and volunteers who give their time and effort to help others.  I mentioned earlier that there are probably no climate deniers at these organizations.  What I do not see is the political clout that these organizations need to seriously impact the political process in this country.

Either there are not enough people who support climate change efforts in the world, or these organizations do not have enough political power to reach these people.  It is my opinion that fewer organizations working together would accomplish more than many disparate environmental organizations each staffed with a director, assistant director, administration people, HR people and other people not directly impacting the organization mission.  Of course, some staff people are needed.  The question is how many staff people are needed.  Too many organizations working towards the same mission and goals is inefficient.  Imagine, if Honda had a separate organization for each of its products.  The reason companies become conglomerates is because of scale efficiencies.

What Are Economies of Scale?

“Economies of scale are cost advantages reaped by companies when production becomes efficient. Companies can achieve economies of scale by increasing production and lowering costs. This happens because costs are spread over a larger number of goods. Costs can be both fixed and variable.” — Investopia

Global net anthropogenic emissions have continued to rise across all major groups of greenhouse gases.

A new flagship UN report on climate change out Monday indicating that harmful emissions from 2010-2019 were at their highest levels in human history, is proof that the world is on a “fast track” to disaster, António Guterres has warned. Reacting to the latest findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN Secretary-General insisted that unless governments everywhere reassess their energy policies, the world will be uninhabitable.

  1. How come the climate keeps getting worse?

Keep doing the same thing and expect different results and you are crazy.  The results on climate change are all going in the wrong direction.  Things are getting worse every day.  Many scientists say that we are already past the point of no return.  In a recent article by another environmental organization Circle of Blue, the author wrote that Arizona will probably be a wasteland with no water and deserted cities by 2060.

“The state enters an era of relentless decline. By 2060, according to several published projections, extreme heat and water scarcity could make Phoenix one of the continent’s most uninhabitable places.”  “Arizona’s Future Water Shock” by Keith Schneider, Circle of Blue – March 28, 2022

This concerns me greatly, since twelve years ago Karen and I bought a home in Arizona City.  We live half way between Tucson and Phoenix right in the middle of the Sonoran Desert.  We were assured by realtors that there was enough water for one hundred years when we bought our home.  A year later, we realized that realtors are the biggest liars in America.  This excludes politicians whom everyone knows cannot help but be liars.

Getting back on focus, if you were running an organization and everything you were doing was leading to declining sales, declining profits, declining demand for your products or declining success on your major indicators, would you still keep doing the same thing?

We have had twenty or more years of declining climate.  Isn’t it about time for these environmental organizations to change strategies?  Perhaps instead of writing articles, hiring lawyers etc., they should be hiring more marketing and PR people to reach out to the larger public.  Hubert Humphrey once said that “If you give the people the right information, they will make the right decisions.”  We have an SEC Commission which publishes stock reports on an hourly basis.  We have a Consumer Affairs Office which provides us with monthly updates on consumer spending and inflation.  We have a Commerce Department and Labor Department which issue regular updates on labor, monetary policies, gross domestic product, and many other economic indicators.  All of these reports help to insure that people have information about the economy.  But when it comes to the environment, where are the national indicators?  Where are the:

  • Weekly updates on temperature changes by state?
  • Weekly updates on water supplies by state?
  • Weekly updates on ozone levels, methane levels, carbon dioxide levels?
  • Weekly updates on aquifer levels?

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Maybe if more people had as many facts about the environment as they have about the economy, they could make better decisions.  Maybe, there would be less climate deniers and more people voting for officials willing to change how we deal with the environment.  Maybe, maybe, maybe.  But one thing is certain, if we keep doing what we are doing, we will leave a barren unsustainable world for future generations.

This excerpt is from an article that is worth reading if you are concerned about the environment.  I will put the url after the excerpt:

“There are so many crises occurring simultaneously that we cannot be misled when it comes to the solution. We must not return to ‘normal’ as advocated by governments and corporations: ‘normal’ is part of the problem. It is time to demand strategic changes that represent more radical responses and create conditions for other changes in the future. Major decarbonisation can help us today. However, it will not be easy to demand structural reforms without working-class mobilisation. Here, we see the important role of social movements in Latin America in demanding the impossible, especially when any other perspective could push us even further into the abyss.”

This excerpt if from:  https://thetricontinental.org/notebook-3-green-new-deal

Why, Why, Why Would Anyone Vote for Trump?

13 Jun 2022 12 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

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Perhaps no question in history has spawned more theories and more books to explain the “Trump Phenomenon.”  Why would anyone with one iota of decency vote for and support someone who lacked all morality and all integrity?  Trump is certainly not the first leader to lack any semblance of morality. However, given that he was elected to what some believe is the last great hope for “Democracy,” it boggles the mind that such a person could become President of the United States of America.  Trump and his supporters stand against every principle that this nation was founded on.

1_olMzFxyjypYKzro3iFezQgI have read at least a dozen books and heard a different theory each month on why Trump was elected.  From racism, to sexism, to xenophobia, to white supremacy, to rural alienation, to immigration, to abortion, to anti-immigration, to income gaps, to blue collar woes, to anti-globalism, to Christianity, to government overreach, to tax issues, to wage gaps, to inflation, to isolationism, to lack of American jobs, to anti-education, each one of these and several more have been promoted as the “reason” for Trumps support.

You can read volumes about these reasons, and you will still be looking for a reason.  None of them seem to provide the “whole” explanation and new books are pumped out daily by Trump accusers and sycophants.  These same ass-kissing, boot licking followers who now want to throw shit on Trump while exonerating their own culpability.

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So imagine my surprise when I came across this explanation for why people followed Hitler written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  He wrote this while in jail for his resistance to Hitler’s policies.   Bonhoeffer was a famous Lutheran pastor and theologian who threw caution to the wind when he decided that he had to speak out against Hitler.  He was arrested, tried, and found guilty.  He was too well known for Hitler to immediately execute.  Hitler put Bonhoeffer in prison but on April 9th, 1945 just three weeks before he died, Hitler opted for his trademark vindictiveness and cruelty.  He ordered Bonhoeffer hung along with several other conspirators.

This writing was done while Bonhoeffer was in prison.  In a very short piece,  he sums up why anyone would support someone like Trump, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin or any other actual or would be dictator.  It explains “Why Trump” better than any of the long-winded studies I have read.  Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

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Bonhoeffer:  On Stupidity

Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease.

Against stupidity we are defenseless.

Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed — in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical — and when facts are irrefutable, they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self-satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack.

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For that reason, greater caution is called for than with a malicious one. Never again will we try to persuade the stupid person with reasons, for it is senseless and dangerous.

If we want to know how to get the better of stupidity, we must seek to understand its nature. This much is certain, that it is in essence not an intellectual defect but a human one. There are human beings who are of remarkably agile intellect yet stupid, and others who are intellectually quite dull yet anything but stupid.

We discover this to our surprise in particular situations. The impression one gains is not so much that stupidity is a congenital defect, but that, under certain circumstances, people are made stupid or that they allow this to happen to them.

We note further that people who have isolated themselves from others or who live in solitude manifest this defect less frequently than individuals or groups of people inclined or condemned to sociability. And so it would seem that stupidity is perhaps less a psychological than a sociological problem.

It is a particular form of the impact of historical circumstances on human beings, a psychological concomitant of certain external conditions. Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or of a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity.

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It would even seem that this is virtually a sociological-psychological law. The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other.

The process at work here is not that particular human capacities, for instance, the intellect, suddenly atrophy or fail. Instead, it seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence, and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances.

The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with a person, but with slogans, catchwords and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.

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Yet at this very point it becomes quite clear that only an act of liberation, not instruction, can overcome stupidity.

Here we must come to terms with the fact that in most cases a genuine internal liberation becomes possible only when external liberation has preceded it. Until then we must abandon all attempts to convince the stupid person.

This state of affairs explains why in such circumstances our attempts to know what ‘the people’ really think are in vain and why, under these circumstances, this question is so irrelevant for the person who is thinking and acting responsibly. The word of the Bible that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom declares that the internal liberation of human beings to live the responsible life before God is the only genuine way to overcome stupidity.

But these thoughts about stupidity also offer consolation in that they utterly forbid us to consider the majority of people to be stupid in every circumstance. It really will depend on whether those in power expect more from people’s stupidity than from their inner independence and wisdom.

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You can keep looking for explanations.  I think there surely will be more raised.  However, I am content to stop here with Bonhoeffer’s explanation.  I may not agree with everything he says but he explains quite well why discussion and debate with these people are a total waste of time. 

Reconstructing the Great Speeches – Socrates: “The Defense Speech”

03 Jul 2020 10 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , ,

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It was said that Socrates was the “Wisest Man” in the world.  Actually, Socrates was not that smart.  If he had been smart, he would have realized that teaching people to question authority was not such a good idea.  Socrates was the epitome of Greek philosophy.  He was born in 470 BCE and died in 399 BCE at the age of 71.  He died or rather was executed by taking the poison hemlock after being found guilty of “corrupting” the youth of Athens.  Corrupting should be thought of as a euphemism for actually getting the youth to “think for themselves.”  A characteristic no more desired two thousand and five hundred years ago than it is today.  (See my blog “Are Americans Brainwashed.”)

Hundreds of years later and schools are still not able to teach critical thinking skills to students.  I have been in education for over 45 years and I can testify to fact that rote learning is valued ten times more than critical thinking in any school in America.  True, there are many educators who will tell you how important critical thinking skills are.  However, when push comes to shove standardized tests, SAT tests, ACT tests, GRE tests, GMAT tests, LSAT tests, MCAT tests, diploma requirements and graduation exams all demand facts and data.  The quest for the holy grail of critical thinking goes down the toilet.

Socrates might not have actually been the smartest man or even the smartest philosopher, but he certainly knew the value of critical thinking.  The Socratic Method is still widely revered as perhaps the best method for teaching critical thinking.  Socrates did not leave a large body of writings or principles or admonitions for success and greatness.  Socrates simply left us the art of investigating or discussing the truth of opinions, also known as a dialectic.  The Socratic method accomplished this by questioning everything.  Wikipedia defines the method as follows:

“The Socratic method (also known as method of Elenchus, elenctic method, or Socratic debate), is a form of cooperative argumentative dialogue between individuals, based on asking and answering questions to stimulate critical thinking and to draw out ideas and underlying presuppositions.” —- Wikipedia

If I am sounding critical of Socrates, this is not my intent.  If any man in history was my hero, it would be Socrates.  Not only did Socrates value critical thinking and actually practice it with his pupils, but he had the audacity and courage to stick to his guns right up to the end.  To understand the integrity of the man, you must read and understand his Defense Speech given at his trial.

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The Trial of Socrates and His Defense Speech:

The fathers of Athens and the Athenian leaders had finally had enough of Socrates.  Socrates had created many enemies along the way.  Other philosophers resented his methods and his denigration of their supposed wisdom.  Prominent leaders thought he challenged democracy because Socrates believed that democratic decision making did not always result in the best decisions.  When it came to their children questioning them and their authority, this was the final straw.

Socrates was hauled into an Athenian court and charged with two counts.  Corrupting the youth of Athens and impious acts.  His impious acts involved questioning the Greek gods.  The Athenians did not have a strict separation of church and state.  Socrates really pissed them off by failing to respect their gods.  Even today, such disrespect will get you killed in many countries across the globe.

Now of course, no one has an exact transcript of Socrates trial.  It has also been generally acknowledged that despite Socrates being found guilty by five hundred Athenian jurors of both charges and sentenced to death, they were willing to let him escape to another country or face a voluntary exile.  This is where it gets really interesting and where you see the courage and integrity of Socrates.  His speech is a defense of everything Socrates finds important in life including his self-respect.

Most of what we know about Socrates and his Defense Speech is found in the following documents:

download“Primary-source accounts of the trial and execution of Socrates are the Apology of Socrates by Plato and the Apology of Socrates to the Jury by Xenophon of Athens, who had been his student; contemporary interpretations include The Trial of Socrates (1988) by the journalist I. F. Stone, and Why Socrates Died: Dispelling the Myths (2009) by the Classics scholar Robin Waterfield.”  —- Wikipedia

I highly recommend the “Apology of Socrates” by Plato and “The Trial of Socrates” by I.F. Stone.  The following speech excerpts are taken from “The Apology” by Plato.  The Translation is by Benjamin Jowett.

“Someone will say: And are you not ashamed, Socrates, of a course of life which is likely to bring you to an untimely end? To him I may fairly answer: There you are mistaken: a man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong – acting the part of a good man or of a bad.”

Socrates is declaring that virtue in life comes not from living or dying but from doing what you think is right or wrong.  Virtue does not come from living a long life but from living a good life.  If you suffer ill consequences from doing the right thing, it should not matter.  Your conscience is more important than your body.  Imagine for a second if the US Congress was full of men and women who adhered to this belief.

“They in their fear (of death) apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good. Is there not here conceit of knowledge, which is a disgraceful sort of ignorance? And this is the point in which, as I think, I am superior to men in general, and in which I might perhaps fancy myself wiser than other men, – that whereas I know but little of the world below, I do not suppose that I know: but I do know that injustice and disobedience to a better, whether God or man, is evil and dishonorable, and I will never fear or avoid a possible good rather than a certain evil.”

Years before Caesar noted that “Cowards die many deaths and heroes die only once”, Socrates was admonishing the Athenians to not fear death but to fear ignorance and to fear a hubris that was overly proud of knowledge and wisdom.  Socrates asserted that if he was wise, it was because he did not try to act as though the knew everything.  He was humble in the face of his own ignorance of the world.

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Consider today the experts that surround us and try to act like they are miniature gods.  Doctors, lawyers, engineers, military planners, intelligence experts and of course academicians all like to parade their wisdom and knowledge that in actuality is far surpassed by what they do not know.  Nevertheless, advice is rendered, fees collected and the sheep among us march passively towards a perhaps ignominious fate buoyed by a firm belief in whatever nostrum has been sold to them.

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“O my friend, why do you who are a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens, care so much about laying up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all? Are you not ashamed of this?”

Socrates knew that money, honor, and fame often had little to do with wisdom and truth and the improvement of the soul.  Several centuries later, and we have a populace that has elected a leader because many of the voters believed that “A rich man was a wise man.”  Socrates knew this was false and so has every major prophet quoted in both the Old Testament and the New Testament and every holy book every written in history from the Hindu Vedas to the writings of   Abdu’l-Bahá.

“He who hath knowledge and power will rather seek out the glory of heaven, and spiritual distinction, and the life that dieth not. And such a one longeth to approach the sacred Threshold of God; for in the tavern of this swiftly-passing world the man of God will not lie drunken, nor will he even for a moment take his ease, nor stain himself with any fondness for this earthly life.”  — Abdu’l-Bahá

It is amazing to me that the greatest works in history all tell us the same thing.  We must seek out the truth.  We must live a virtuous and moral life.  We must take success with a grain of salt.  We must not be seduced by greed and fame.  We must not judge others by how much they own or do not own.  Jesus said we must feed the hungry and take care of the sick.  Major religions all over the world are predicated on these basic ideas.  Yet, everywhere we look, we see adherents to these same religions practicing the very opposite of what their prophets have espoused.

“If this was the condition on which you let me go, I should reply: Men of Athens, I honor and love you; but I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy.”

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Socrates was more afraid of being a hypocrite than he was of dying.  He would not forfeit his integrity for his life.  Contrast that with the cowards and sycophants we see every day in the news, on TV, in the Congress and in the White House willing to forfeit their soul and anything they say they believe in to support lies, misinformation, disinformation and immoral intrigues that surpass anything imaginable.  People with more money than they can ever spend but still willing to accept bribes for power and position and more money rather than look for the truth or support a goal of knowledge driven leadership.

Socrates did not leave Athens even when his supporters offered to spirit him away.  Socrates saw such flight as cowardice and a repudiation of everything he believed in. Socrates was a martyr to integrity.  Fame for Socrates was not a fifteen-minute exercise in tweeting or attacking someone with less power than he had.  Socrates attacked the very heart and soul of all evil.  He attacked ignorance and offered a search for truth instead.

Facts, Data, Evidence and the Search for Truth – Part 3 – What is Data?

19 Nov 2016 Leave a comment

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

In Part 1, I discussed the difficulty with finding the Truth.  It is a quest complicated by the amount of information that we are inundated with on a daily basis.  It is further complicated in that much of the information we find is either erroneous or outright lies.  The average person has never studied information theory in school and is ill equipped to sort through the morass of Data, Evidence and Facts that are presented to them.  In Part 2, I tried to break down the concept of what a Fact is to help people better understand its role in truth finding.  In Part 3, I will try to break down the second pillar of truth finding and look at what Data is and is not and the difficulties with collecting objective and valid Data.

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What is Data?

I hope to dispel some of the confusion over the concept of Data and make it easier for people to see the pros and cons of using Data.  We have too many people in business, religion, government and the military who do not understand what Data is and who misuse it by quoting statistics and numerical information incorrectly.  One negative result is to confuse people over what is true and what is not true.  An even more insidious result of the misuse of Data is incorrect decision making.  During the Vietnam War, the inflated enemy kills and deflated enemy troop levels led to a total lack of ability to plan strategically for the war.  Thousands of people were killed on both sides by the negligent and criminal misuse of Data and statistics on the part of the military and defense department.

“Former CIA analyst Sam Adams told a federal jury here Monday that Army Gen. William C. Westmoreland caused a “massive falsification” of intelligence during the Vietnam War by imposing a ceiling upon the numbers of enemy troops.”  — Westmoreland Blamed for Faulty Troop Reports : Witness for CBS Testifies General’s Policy Caused ‘Massive Falsification’ — January 15, 1985, RUDY ABRAMSON 

fast_data_brain_treeWhen 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?  Merriam Webster dictionary defines Data as:  “Facts or information used usually to calculate, analyze, or plan something.”  This definition is very misleading and inaccurate.

In the first place, Data is not necessarily a Fact.  Data is unorganized bits of numbers and calculations which by themselves do not add up to a Fact.  For instance, here is some Data:  3, 4, 7, 15 and 12.  Individually, these numbers do not mean a thing.  As an example, take the English alphabet, which is composed of 26 letters.  Each letter by itself means little or nothing.  Data by itself usually has no meaning or significance.  It must be organized before it will have any meaning or usefulness.

Secondly, Data is not information.  A letter by itself does not provide information of anything nor does a single display of numbers or statistics provide any information.  You must put them together to mean something.  When they are put together in some form of a relationship, they can then be called information.  For example, 2+2= 4 constitutes bits of Data put into an equation that gives me the sum of the individual bits of Data.  Data aggregated in some type of meaningful form becomes information.

“Look beyond the numbers you see to what they mean and understand how the numbers presented may not fully capture the important details you need to consider.” — Statistics Abuse and Me by Jay Mathews:

man-data-analytics-chalkboard-ss-1920If 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.

The process of measuring something must also match the purpose or objective.  Dr. Deming frequently used the example of cleaning a table to discuss measurement problems.  Dr. Deming emphasized the need to know “why” something was needed to be done.  If a person is asked to clean a table, how can the person understand the level of cleanliness required without first understanding why they are performing the job in the first place?  If the table is to be used as a workbench, it would require a different level of cleanliness then if it were to be used as a lunch table.  Even more different if it was to be used as an operating room table.  Understanding why we are doing something is critical to determining the appropriate measurement process.   The measurement process will influence the Data we obtain.

Here are several other problems that are commonly encountered when collecting Data:

  • Irrelevant or duplicate Data collected
  • Pertinent Data omitted
  • Different measures of the same object by those collecting the data
  • Erroneous collected
  • Too little Data acquired
  • Insufficient time to collect the Data properly
  • Poor methods of storing or archiving Data
  • Lack of a systematic method for collecting Data

If we have addressed all of the above problems, we are still not out of the forest, in fact, we are probably only about one half way through the forest.  We now face the most daunting and difficult task of all.  We must attempt to interpret the Data and catalog the Data without bias.  A number of movies have been made which illustrate the difficulty of presenting Data or information without bias.  They are all based on what has been labeled as the Rashomon Effect. roshomon-effect

“This is a term used to describe the circumstance when the same event is given contradictory interpretations by different individuals involved. The term derives from Akira Kurosawa‘s 1950 film Rashomon, in which a murder involving four individuals (suspects, witnesses, and surviving victims) is described in four mutually contradictory ways. More broadly, the term addresses the motivations, mechanism, and occurrences of the reporting on the circumstance, and so addresses contested interpretations of events, the existence of disagreements regarding the Evidence of events, and the subjects of subjectivity versus objectivity in human perception, memory, and reporting.” — Wikipedia

It is inevitable that any observations we make in life are biased by the prior experiences we have.  Our senses are not infallible measures of sight, smell, taste, hearing and touch.  Each of our senses is infused with the Data that they have already been exposed to.  The prior Data that each of us has already experienced will influence our future perceptions.  Similarly, our brains are also biased by prior ideas and experiences.  We cannot get away from bias.  Sadly, extreme bias leads to a lack of credibility and objectivity.  (We will discuss the concepts of objectivity and credibility in more depth when we discuss Truth in Part 5 of this article.)

I noted earlier that there is no solution or at least I have not found one to our central problem in terms of searching for the truth.  It is no easy matter to find Data, organize Data and interpret Data in such a way that we eliminate bias and insure objectivity.  The scientific method is one system for collecting and organizing Data to test a theory or hypothesis that is invaluable.  The method can be summarized as follows:

  1. Make an observation
  2. Propose a theory or hypothesis
  3. Design and perform experiments to test the hypothesis
  4. Collect Data from the experiments
  5. Determine if the Data, Facts and Evidence support the hypothesis

There are millions of scientific experiments that have been conducted since the founding of the scientific method.  The results of these experiments have helped us to develop civilization and many of the modern conveniences we now have.  Science has added to our health, safety and longevity in so many ways that are beyond dispute.  Without science, we would still be living in caves, dying in our twenties and eating cold meat.  The scientific method is the single most important method for identifying the truth that has ever been developed.

screen-shot-2014-11-05-at-11-50-43-pm-820x1024Unfortunately, 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:

  1. Who will make the best President or Leader?
  2. What is the best way to deal with ISIS in the Mideast?
  3. Should we support the UN more strongly in its peace keeping role?
  4. What is the best way to create jobs and stimulate the economy?

Each of the above questions could be stated as a theory, but each would be difficult if not impossible to prove due to the difficulty of collecting objective Data.  By objective, I mean Data that is not biased.  In Fact, it would be difficult to even collect accurate Data to prove any of the above questions.

Where does the above discussion leave us?  I fear the outcome of this discussion will not be satisfactory to anyone looking for some full proof means to find, catalog and interpret Data that is 100 percent accurate, reliable, valid and objective.  The closest we will come to such a process is the scientific method.   Alas, even this method is not full proof and as we all know, science is subject to a great deal of bias and distortion, at least in areas where Data is more subjective than objective.  However, even in areas such as Global Warming where one would think the Data could be found that is objective and reliable, we still find a great number of people who argue that Global Warming does not exist.  This raises the final and most difficult problem to solve before we are out of the forest and that is the problem of denial and delusion.  I will defer this discussion to Part 5.

afrobarometer-data-1Finally, 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.

Next week in Part 4, we will look at the concept of Evidence and the how this concept informs our search for the truth. 

Time for Questions:

Do you understand what Data is?  Do you know what a Bell Shaped Curve is?  Do you trust the Data you see in the news? Do you trust what your local political leaders tell you?  How accurate do you think the news is when reporting information?  What do you think biases your own interpretations of Data and events?  How do you try to be more objective when studying a problem?

Life is just beginning.

“Any time scientists disagree, it’s because we have insufficient Data.  Then we can agree on what kind of Data to get; we get the Data; and the Data solves the problem. Either I’m right, or you’re right, or we’re both wrong. And we move on.  That kind of conflict resolution does not exist in politics or religion.” — Neil deGrasse Tyson

 

Facts, Data, Evidence and the Search for Truth – Part 2 – What is a Fact?

08 Nov 2016 2 Comments

by Dr. John Persico Jr. in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

In Part 1, I discussed the difficulty with finding the Truth.  It is a quest complicated by the amount of information that we are inundated with on a daily basis.  It is further complicated in that much of the information we find is either erroneous or outright lies.  The average person has never studied information theory in school and is ill equipped to sort through the morass of Data, Evidence and Facts that are presented to them.  I admitted in Part 1 that I do not have the entire solution to this problem.  Namely, how do we find the Truth?  In Part 2, 3 and 4, I want to describe the three elements of Truth seeking:  Facts, Data and Evidence and then in the final Part 5 show how they relate to the problem of finding the Truth.  We will start by looking at what a Fact is.

facts-not-fiction

Facts:

The common definition of a Fact is something that can be verified.  But the concept of verification is a very difficult idea to pin down.  What do we mean by verify?  Do we mean that we can find other people who agree with the “Fact?”  For instance, most people today would agree that the world is round or at least elliptical.  However, there was a long period in history, when common knowledge held that the world was flat.  Thus, common knowledge is not always a good means of verifying a Fact.  Nevertheless, we often rely on common knowledge as a means of Fact verification.  Most so called Facts are simply things that have become commonly agreed on.  For instance, that Columbus discovered America in 1492.  We are taught this in history but we are not taught that many people would not agree with this Fact.  Common knowledge is a very dangerous form of verification.

It is very easy to accept a Fact as Truth if we forget or ignore the limitations of such verification.  In many court trials, jurors have considered it as a Fact if they have verification by an eyewitness to the sequence of events or people who were present at a particular crime.  History has shown however, that eye witnesses are very unreliable (see How reliable is eyewitness testimony?).  Today we rely more and more on video cameras for verification of certain events.  Even their use has not proven to be the panacea that many have hoped for.

Another means of Fact verification is measurement.  What if we can measure the Fact?  Surely, the ability to measure something should be conclusive proof that a Fact is accurate or true.  Unfortunately, this is not the case.  For instance, it is now stated as a Fact that Mt. Everest is 29,029′ in elevation (Wiki).  We can accept this measurement as a Fact but there are two problems with doing so.  First, the height of every mountain in the world is constantly changing.  Weather, erosion and other forces of nature will over time lower some mountains and raise other mountains.  Second, any measurement system is dependent on the accuracy and reliability of the measurement instrument and the process used in the measuring of the particular variable.  A sloppy process of measurement can lead to false or unreliable results.  The OJ trial was a good example of where the jurors refused to believe the Facts obtained from the LA crime labs.

misinformation“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.”  http://www.crimemuseum.org/crime-library/forensic-investigation-of-the-oj-simpson-trial/

Take your common bathroom scale.  If you weigh yourself regularly you will notice that you can get different readings on successive times of getting on the scale.  I am not talking about different days but even taking these readings at the same exact time.  Get on your scale, get off again and then get right on again and you will very likely get slightly different readings.  Our ability to measure things has become more and more accurate.  Nevertheless, every measurement system is either subject to errors of validity or reliability.

fact-finding-techniques-1-638A 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.

A correlation is a measure of how much things vary with each other.  Thus, the amount of grass growth is generally highly correlated with rainfall.  The more rain we get, the more the grass grows.  The amount of money one makes is somewhat but not highly correlated with IQ.  Earnings tend to be more highly correlated with amount of education but this is only true up to a point.  The concept of correlation is a very important concept in measurement.  We are often fooled by thinking that things are correlated when they are not.  This can lead to poor decision making.  Here are some examples of positive correlations:

  • The more time you spend running on a treadmill, the more calories you will burn.
  • Taller people have larger shoe sizes and shorter people have smaller shoe sizes.
  • The more hours you spend in direct sunlight, the more severe your sunburn.
  • As the temperature goes up, ice cream sales also go up.
  • The more gasoline you put in your car, the farther it can go.
  • As a child grows, so does his clothing size.

examples.yourdictionary.com/positive-correlation-examples.html#JFuQhtBXA6whRayS.99

When a 100 percent or 1-1 correlation does not exist, you can always find exceptions to any rule or Fact.  A false correlation is created when people assume two things to be true and related when they are not.  For instance, Trumps claim that a good businessperson will make a good president has no basis in Fact or historical Evidence.  False correlations lead to many problems including delusions, myths, fanatical beliefs and not just poor but disastrous decision making.  Following, I will provide some examples of false correlation:

  • The more one exercises, the more weight one will lose
  • Reading will make a person more intelligent
  • Paying people more will increase productivity
  • A happy worker is a productive worker
  • The longer one is married, the happier they are
  • Lowering taxes will create jobs and improve the economy

Understanding the concept of correlation is critical to measurement and hence critical to Fact finding.  If we assume that measuring anything is the best way to verify a Fact, we must be critical and open minded about the limitations of the measurement system that we decide to use.

bull-spottingBefore 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.

Bias is another major problem with Fact checking or Fact verification.  Sites like PolitiFact have lulled people into thinking that Facts can be checked with great accuracy.  Not only is this assertion mostly false but there is another problem.  Bias will inevitably creep into the process of Fact checking when some Facts are checked and others are not.  Another example will illustrate this problem.  Let us take a debate between Hillary and Trump as our example.  During the course of a 90 minute debate there might be as many as 200 assertions that could be Fact checked.  PolitiFact will not check all of them.  Which ones will they check?  The Facts that might make Hillary look like a liar or the Facts that might make Trump look like a liar?  By judiciously choosing the Facts that I decide to check, I can bias the results for either Trump or Hillary.  Just having the most Facts on one’s side does not insure that one also has Truth on their side.

Next week in Part three, we will look at Data and the how this concept informs our search for the Truth. 

Time for Questions:

Can you tell me how you know a true Fact from a false Fact?  How do you decide what to believe?  How much credibility do you put in the news that you hear?  How do you choose the news that you want to hear?  How do you decide who is telling the Truth?

Life is just beginning.

“I am a firm believer in the people. If given the Truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real Facts.”  —  Abraham Lincoln