I noticed a lot of the companies over the winter being cited for keeping their DEI programs like Costco were only calling them D & I programs. D & I seems to me, maybe naively, to be completely uncontroversial and good.
I recently had jury duty and one of two videos we had to watch was about unconscious bias. Almost no one likes jury duty and almost no one likes sitting through mandatory videos. It seemed appropriate though. We all have unconscious bias and should work to acknowledge it and work through it.
I think periodically being reminded we're capable of it helps us remember to look for it, which during a jury trial would be important.
I think the key point is not to diminish people for having it, just accepting it and hoping they can address it.
I myself think the "E" is where the issue lies. I use a sports analogy; teams who look outside the regular avenues for potential players often uncover overlooked gems (Tom Brady in the 6th round). And I don't see how trying to make a workplace feel welcoming, in and of itself, is a bad thing. But trying to impose "equity outcomes" will rub people the wrong way, which is a common perception.
My first thought on reading this had to do with politicians, particularly the one in the White House.
I know a number of people for whom I have a lot of respect who are solid supporters of DJT.
This article clarified for me the cause of this support. They see and identify with the guy from Queens who said things that needed to be said and was roundly abused by elite snobs who - in their bias - assume competence with construction equipment equates to ignorance of history, politics and law.
But this is true of the relationship between all politicians and those who vote or don't vote for them. It is nearly impossible for most people to get good information on those running for office (and the more local the election the harder it is to come by substantive information). They - we - are left with gut instinct or templates made from popular tropes.
It's not that we don't apply critical thinking in working to understand issues. It's that inadequately considered bias fills the gaps.
It seems to me that improving "diversity, equity and inclusion" may have been better served by presenting it as examination of personal bias in general. The possibility that my assessment of the guilt or innocence of a sex trafficker could be warped due to the reasons mentioned above would not have occurred to me. To be effective it must be a matter of education - drawing out - rather than training.
That's very good. The only part I have a different viewpoint on is the "It's not that we don't apply critical thinking in working to understand issues". I am fearful of knowing the actual percentage of those not using critical thinking on important issues because I believe critical thinking is almost nonexistent in majority percentages of the electorate.
Yup. Elizabeth Kolbert wrote a great piece about this a few years ago. People choose their own facts that align with what they already believe, and then imagine they're thinking critically.
It's a tough one to draw out. I benefitted by the coincidence of the training with the news about Ghislaine and Christy's birthday all being close together. I don't think it was a case I naturally spotted it.
I think about Joe Paterno; he missed on his friend Jerry Sandusky, because it was a friend. He couldn't imagine anyone doing that to kids, let alone a good friend. That happens a lot.
Do you know who Trump reminds me of? Rodney Dangerfield. He had a movie where he is successful and goes back to college, and tries to buy all the support he needs. I just see Trump in that. My favorite line in the movie is Rodney gets an F on an English assignment, and they show him yelling at someone over the phone, who turns out to be Kurt Vonnegut, Jr, who wrote the essay for him.
I am a firm believer in stockpiling information so there is a chance of the bits colliding and producing helpful insight. No guarantees, of course. I wonder how shared thoughtful personal experience is labeled. A data point to be confirmed and compared with others?
I have never seen that movie but have been thinking I need to (as well as a bunch of others popular when I was in HS but that I had no interest in at the time.) I do remember hearing about Kurt Vonnegut's part. It is kind of sad.
Per Joe, what's sad is if all the testimony and evidence is true, Joe knew and chose to ignore it. Ftiendship Bias? Professional assholery? I think he was too old and should've hit the door at least a decade before he was forced out. Old people get weird. I speak from very personal experience.
Nailed it! Implicit bias has happened to all of us and we need to try to have more awareness and compassion around that. When I was a freshman in high school our new band instructor walked in, did a double take at me and blurted out that I reminded him of his sister...his sister he did not like. At least he was honest about it. I've met people I disliked instantly for no good reason I could think of at the time. Later on I'd realize they minded me of someone who was a problem in the past. Like you pointed out, we all have implicit bias and it may just be an automatic survival mechanism. Monty Roberts, aka the horse whisperer, noted that many horses retain memories of bad/cruel people by their hat color. Gunther Gebel Williams, the famous big cat trainer, has stories of his big cats, especially tigers, who could recognize circus workers they disliked after an absence of 8 years! So implicit bias may be an evolutionary trait among mammals?
I have horse owner friends who say the same thing about horses. Same with dogs; I've seen it. I find it very easy to believe it's an evolutionary trait among mammals.
I do think you're on to something about evolution here, CynthiaW below as well. Being able to match patterns quickly is often a survival skill, so that it bleeds over into relationships makes sense.
If the question is "should we or should we not pay attention to our feelings," then it seems like the correct answer is "pay attention to what you're feeling, then use your reasoning abilities to account for the feelings and correlate them with facts to get a complete picture. And finally, take a reading with your moral compass about what to do then."
I've had some form of implicit bias training by a former employer; it was termed "unconscious bias" and examples were given. And once I understood the concept (and began to monitor myself for it) I realized that Corporate was itself engaging in unconscious bias in certain areas that had an impact on me. I wondered why, if I could figure this out, why couldn't they? Maybe those guys don't have to take the training themselves.
This is how I try to do it, I know what my feelings are first...Then I think about why I feel that way, especially when my logical side seems to think something is off here...I have a dislike for a new columnist on The Bulwark, and I can't for the life of me figure out why I don't like her...( I rarely dislike anyone)...After reading others' opinions, I think I am close to figuring out the problem ( she writes well, she is personable, just something seems off about her. It is possible it isn't bias as others have concerns too, but I will figure it out. I could be right, as I normally have instincts about people that turn out to be true.
As a start, they're corporate. That automatically selects for a lot of undesirable traits, including absence of unconscious bias. (Per corporate, I'm biased. I understand it, recognize it's necessity, and know myself a little bit, that's why I've never gone near it.)
Cool. I paint with watercolor. The way the pigments blend into nice watercolor "paper" always fascinates me. If you look at nice watercolor "paper" under a microscope, it looks like smooth strands of spaghetti. It's actually not paper; it's cotton fabric. You probably know that already, but I like to say it.
A deeper dive on "bias"!! Ha. I left Academia, ie graduated, over half a century ago. When I was 10, half a century before that was the battle of Ypres and Somme!!
I'd like to pursue the conversational discussion of "bias", in several ways.
First, the world of reasoning, I posit is composed of two types, inductive and deductive. We all know these, so allow some DougAz here 🐰
Deductive reasoning, purely, is only met in mathematics. Not statistics, but geometry and some others. I had a CEO boss, in optics, who gave 3x more crowded slides to the Board, than GE taught. His theory, as optical engineering is; that given all information, rational deduction by all will derive the same conclusion (understanding).
Inductive reasoning, I argue, generally and mostly precedes deductive reasoning. We make hypothesis (ideas of..) and the gathering data; information.
Inductive reasoning is why I found enjoyment and similarities from my (ha failed!) Theoretical physics non-career into my reasonably successful marketing career. Marketing as I practice is founded on a core principle: needs pre-exist. They need "stimulated" to be "discovered". Sometimes, Product/market geniuses can inductive (intuit) these needs. Steve Jobs is the greatest exemplary.
These two work together. And ideally, as in great product development/prkduct marketing; are iterative. See Toyota product development cycle rate in the 1980s -90s. In my JV with a Japanese materials company, I saw this and was duly impressed.
So back to Bias.
In Deductive reasoning, if followed logically, Bias comes from incomplete sets that prescribe a more limited "box of data" to analyze. You set limited boundaries via bias. Either unknowingly or deliberately to force a deduction. We see this most commonly in political sciences, IMHO.
You never ever see this in optical design and engineering. Turns out, that optics is the only engineering discipline that the literally works first time from Design. Because it goes to the 7th to 9th decimal place.
Inductive reasoning, the questions of thinking, stem, arguably, from one's internal deductive box of knowledge. Newton said to Hoooke: "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants".
Inductive and deductive reasoning then, have a coupled existence!
Imagine a [] box. Deductive. Imagine a hypothesis from your box.
/
[/]
The experimentalist ie, us! Goes and gets data to... make the box cover the hypothesis.
But sometimes, the data says nope. Your bigger box needs a different line!! A new hypothesis based on iterative collection of data/information.
|
[ || ]
so natural bias, our "priors", is resolved by iterative curiosity fulfillment, or technically, getting more data.
We live in a world built on deductive logic. Kurt won't build a bridge on a hypothesis!! You don't fly an airplane built only Inductive logic. Hard engineering, is required by safety, reliability, cost, to iteratively work out bias.
I think you're on to a large set of questions, but overall you've got something.
I will fiddle around with a hypothesis for hours/days/years to see if something holds up. I sure won't try to build it until I know for sure. OTOH, my 100 year old apartment building is my laboratory. I've done stuff, and still do stuff, experimentally because the building industry is ossified and I wonder if some weird thing will work. I don't experiment where there's life or personal safety hazard, but if it's a benign operation, I'm all over it.
My current experiments have to do with lime mortar. I've been doing masonry repair with St Astier #3 Lime from France and pure masons sand... no Portland. The results are amazing. The engineers told me it doesn't work. It does.
I don't think the issue is bias as much as incomplete information, or incomplete knowledge of how something is to be used. When I worked for the US Navy, we had to teach young engineers how to improve their designs, as they had not incorporated all the relevant information needed for their design into their design.
We created a program called "design for manufacturability"; older engineers and guys on the shop floor would teach young engineers insights into what might improve their designs. A simple example was not to put a hole in metal too close to a bend in the metal, as bending the metal would change (ever so slightly) the shape and size of the hole. I shared the idea with my oldest son, who got it, sharing an example where a design failed because the original design was made for different conditions than how it was to be used in the current design.
So yeah, it's iterative. It's good to have a wide variety of people looking over stuff, applying their own expertise to show how flaws can appear. I remember advice given for the original Apple II; drop it from about a foot from the desktop, to help parts "settle in". It appears to have worked.
I worked with Value Analysis a lot, as the 80s were the heyday of engineering plastics replacing multiple automotive components in new car designs. And we also used DFMA, and learned a lot from Boothroyd and Dewhurst from RISD. https://www.dfma.com/origins.asp
Which I'm sure you know. That was a very fun time as engineering changed from Wood desks, t-squares and slopes to the new CAE. 1st mainframe, then Sun/Apollo and then desktop Solid Works.
I remember autocad from my time there, the gold standard for CAE. When my oldest went to college 20 years later, he had kinda heard of it in the same way he had heard of slide rules! 🤦♂️ I felt old! 😢
I created some office layouts in autocad, which our Public Works officer refused to consider; but his subordinate took mine, added it as a layer, then added in the stuff they specialize in (electrical).
Using the box to illustrate deductive reasoning and the hypothesis to illustrate inductive reasoning is helpfully concrete. I am always looking for different ways to explain those types of concepts. Thanks.
We did about 11 miles on gravel yesterday (stunning scenery) and 34 miles on the road. Today we head toward Moab. We are riding in Paradox Valley. The paradox is that the river runs perpendicular rather than parallel to the valley. We rode the route south yesterday and today we are riding it north. I didn’t really enjoy the almost two mile descent because I knew I’d be climbing back up it today.
It's an "engineered stone" installation that's been weathered. It's better than a gravel road that's engineered for cars, but it's still brutal on the way back up.
My son and I did a hiking trip to Canyonlands and MTB in Moab area a few years ago. It is unique and beautiful scenery. We live only 4 hours or so east of there and really want to spend more time in the Utah parks. Somehow we always seem too busy doing other stuff.
We are in Carbondale, about 150 miles east. I was in western CO a few weeks ago in Fruita, at the Desert Rats half marathon trail run. That week it was a little warm! Especially for running. Weather here is great today, with much reduced winds. I hope it's the same in Naturita!
"Gravel" is a misnomer. It's an engineered stone application. They (who are they?) used stone sized, washed, and distributed with the idea that people would be walking on it. At least, that's what it looked like to me.
"Rocks" doesn't describe it either. Most folks don't know about engineered stone applications. Folks study this stuff and choose aggregate appropriate to the intended purpose. If that means walking on it, it's a mix of aggregate that compacts, settles in, doesn't shift around, and provides a reasonably stable waking surface. Water will drain through it but not erode it because someone was thinking about that part too.
That’s one of those areas (shape of dirt and gravel) where you don’t appreciate the complexity behind it, and then you go down that rabbit hole, and it’s like whole new expanses of terra incognita open up in front of your eyes…
Katie is off today. I plan to work, but also take time to do stuff with her. I may mow the backyard, even get out my kombi-tool. I have 3-4 attachments for it, including a leaf blower. We call it the "nuclear leaf blower".
Around Halloween two years ago I bought a 6' skeleton for our youngest, who brought it home. We laid it in the basement, in Katie's quilt room. I successfully avoided the temptation to have it kneel behind a tv, so it would be watching her quilt. Although I did tuck it into the guest bed in there, in hopes the doggos won't hop up on it.
Thanks for the insight, Jay. I think the problem for me is I’m an adult and I don’t want other adults morality training me. I’ve got that covered already.
It's a situation where a general concept might be useful to you in understanding yourself better, but building it into a system turns out badly for people except the ones making money off it.
Bingo. It's kinda tangential to Goodhart's Law...When a measure becomes a target, it stops being a good measure. When a goal becomes a target for monetization, it stops being a goal...or something like that. I'm stretching here, trying to appear smart.
Where the DEI movement failed was in moving from aspiration to condescension and guilt. DiAngelo and Kendri were grifters (ironically, Diangelo appears to have been a plagiarist as well), who relied on guilt. I think messages of hope, of appealing to people wanting to be a better version of themselves are best. But then again, I am an idealist at heart.
I watched Matt Walsh's movie 'Am I racist', expecting it to be a Sascha Cohen Baron treatment of DEI, and in many ways it was (and like SCB, it had funny moments in it). The scary part for me was when he tried to see how far people would take the training before realizing it was fake, and they went very far. There's an ethical issue there, a concern I have with both Walsh and SCB, for the same reason.
Good morning. Insightful article, Jay!. Summerlike weather here, with the current temp 78, reaching 80 degrees later, possibly rain. It was in the 80s and humid yesterday.
The mothership is covering GOP negotiations over Trump's "big beautiful bill" for budget reconciliation, extending the Trump tax cuts, cutting spending (which may, or may not, impact Medicaid). FP's TGIF is titled "The Emir of Ameirca" and leads off with comoentary about Trump's favored refugees -- white Afrikanners from South Africa mfleeing violence.
I haven't yet turned off the furnace, as we have had chilly nights the past few weeks, but I opened the windows about two weeks ago (closing them at night). I am getting the hint from Katie she wants the a/c on. I might have to give in on this one!
Love this, Jay. I can’t think of current examples too much but I had a textbook case in my work life. Imagine someone with the charm of Steven Miller, the brains of Elon and the ideas of Peter Navarro. I literally felt I was in spiritual warfare with each interaction, maybe I was! BUT he was a dead ringer (physically) for my first long term boyfriend (PH-pre Hubs) who was killed in a car crash 🥴 My OPINION of him was accurate…a complete 💩 and everyone agreed. But in retrospect I believe the bias did affect my ability to go for his throat (professionally) when it was called for. He certainly didn’t hold his fire on me.
Although I didn't include it, there's an example in the sports world. General managers (who draft and sign players) know they often assume players who look similar often get the implicit bias, mostly in the player's favor. One exercise they use is to require any comparison to be someone who looks nothing like them. One way they do that is to require "opposite race" comparisons. So a skinny baby-faced shooter who is black won't get compared to Steph Curry, but to a white player, and visa versa. It is tougher for European players, which is also why they can be a bit more hit 'n miss. There's some thought the recent Luka Doncic trade may have been made due to some implicit bias on the new GM's part.
Ah, never knew that bc I don’t follow sports enough to know names. But I do think athletes need thick skin because it seems they’re reduced to inanimate objects instead of humans. Sorry, Luca, your image is causing us some heartburn.
"The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is reviewing a proposal for a reality TV show titled The American, which envisions immigrants competing in challenges across the country for a chance to expedite their U.S. citizenship, there is no evidence that Secretary Noem has endorsed or is involved with the project. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin confirmed that the concept is under review but denied that Secretary Noem had read the pitch, despite claims by unnamed sources that she supports the project . 
The show’s concept was developed by producer Rob Worsoff, known for his work on Duck Dynasty, and has been pitched to DHS in the past during the Obama and Biden administrations without success . Currently, the proposal is undergoing a thorough vetting process as part of DHS’s routine review of numerous TV show proposals each year. 
In summary, while DHS is considering the reality show concept, there is no substantiated evidence that Kristi Noem is backing or has endorsed the proposal."
Maybe they could get Mastercard or Visa to sponsor the show, where they come out with a special "Platinum Card", for the high net worth individuals. 🤦♂️
I was hoping we could turn it into a stereotype operation, with people from Russia having to compete in log rolling or axe throwing. Have Hispanics do rodeo and then dance to oompah music. Chinese people could do chopsticks dexterity competition and then compete in math-lete battles.
The judges would be a bunch of white fraternity bros from Dartmouth that sit in Barcaloungers drinking beer watching it all on an 9' TV while exhorting the contestants to excel, high fiving each other while shouting ethnic slurs.
I love that word. Opprobrium. It sounds exactly like what it means. Just saying it makes me want to adopt a deep basso profundo tone. Kinda like "rapprochement"; it sounds like what it means, and when I say it, I unconsciously inflect the tonality with a positive vibe.
Thanks, Jay, that was a good piece...wish I had a good idea to post a piece like that...
Thanks, Jay! It’s useful to consider other perspectives on the issue.
I noticed a lot of the companies over the winter being cited for keeping their DEI programs like Costco were only calling them D & I programs. D & I seems to me, maybe naively, to be completely uncontroversial and good.
I recently had jury duty and one of two videos we had to watch was about unconscious bias. Almost no one likes jury duty and almost no one likes sitting through mandatory videos. It seemed appropriate though. We all have unconscious bias and should work to acknowledge it and work through it.
I think periodically being reminded we're capable of it helps us remember to look for it, which during a jury trial would be important.
I think the key point is not to diminish people for having it, just accepting it and hoping they can address it.
I myself think the "E" is where the issue lies. I use a sports analogy; teams who look outside the regular avenues for potential players often uncover overlooked gems (Tom Brady in the 6th round). And I don't see how trying to make a workplace feel welcoming, in and of itself, is a bad thing. But trying to impose "equity outcomes" will rub people the wrong way, which is a common perception.
Right.
The way it's been used in my town...Evanston, IL...has been as a tacit/implicit/FU In Your Face You're A Racist A-Hole application.
My first thought on reading this had to do with politicians, particularly the one in the White House.
I know a number of people for whom I have a lot of respect who are solid supporters of DJT.
This article clarified for me the cause of this support. They see and identify with the guy from Queens who said things that needed to be said and was roundly abused by elite snobs who - in their bias - assume competence with construction equipment equates to ignorance of history, politics and law.
But this is true of the relationship between all politicians and those who vote or don't vote for them. It is nearly impossible for most people to get good information on those running for office (and the more local the election the harder it is to come by substantive information). They - we - are left with gut instinct or templates made from popular tropes.
It's not that we don't apply critical thinking in working to understand issues. It's that inadequately considered bias fills the gaps.
It seems to me that improving "diversity, equity and inclusion" may have been better served by presenting it as examination of personal bias in general. The possibility that my assessment of the guilt or innocence of a sex trafficker could be warped due to the reasons mentioned above would not have occurred to me. To be effective it must be a matter of education - drawing out - rather than training.
That's very good. The only part I have a different viewpoint on is the "It's not that we don't apply critical thinking in working to understand issues". I am fearful of knowing the actual percentage of those not using critical thinking on important issues because I believe critical thinking is almost nonexistent in majority percentages of the electorate.
Thanks.
Re critical thinking: I don't disagree. I think there is a lot of critical thinking based on things that are not facts.
Epistemology! Proficiency should be required for HS graduation! :-/
Yup. Elizabeth Kolbert wrote a great piece about this a few years ago. People choose their own facts that align with what they already believe, and then imagine they're thinking critically.
It's a tough one to draw out. I benefitted by the coincidence of the training with the news about Ghislaine and Christy's birthday all being close together. I don't think it was a case I naturally spotted it.
I think about Joe Paterno; he missed on his friend Jerry Sandusky, because it was a friend. He couldn't imagine anyone doing that to kids, let alone a good friend. That happens a lot.
Do you know who Trump reminds me of? Rodney Dangerfield. He had a movie where he is successful and goes back to college, and tries to buy all the support he needs. I just see Trump in that. My favorite line in the movie is Rodney gets an F on an English assignment, and they show him yelling at someone over the phone, who turns out to be Kurt Vonnegut, Jr, who wrote the essay for him.
And Melon turned out to be a good guy at the end...
I am a firm believer in stockpiling information so there is a chance of the bits colliding and producing helpful insight. No guarantees, of course. I wonder how shared thoughtful personal experience is labeled. A data point to be confirmed and compared with others?
I have never seen that movie but have been thinking I need to (as well as a bunch of others popular when I was in HS but that I had no interest in at the time.) I do remember hearing about Kurt Vonnegut's part. It is kind of sad.
Thornton Melon...."Back To School". Good call.
Per Joe, what's sad is if all the testimony and evidence is true, Joe knew and chose to ignore it. Ftiendship Bias? Professional assholery? I think he was too old and should've hit the door at least a decade before he was forced out. Old people get weird. I speak from very personal experience.
Nailed it! Implicit bias has happened to all of us and we need to try to have more awareness and compassion around that. When I was a freshman in high school our new band instructor walked in, did a double take at me and blurted out that I reminded him of his sister...his sister he did not like. At least he was honest about it. I've met people I disliked instantly for no good reason I could think of at the time. Later on I'd realize they minded me of someone who was a problem in the past. Like you pointed out, we all have implicit bias and it may just be an automatic survival mechanism. Monty Roberts, aka the horse whisperer, noted that many horses retain memories of bad/cruel people by their hat color. Gunther Gebel Williams, the famous big cat trainer, has stories of his big cats, especially tigers, who could recognize circus workers they disliked after an absence of 8 years! So implicit bias may be an evolutionary trait among mammals?
I have horse owner friends who say the same thing about horses. Same with dogs; I've seen it. I find it very easy to believe it's an evolutionary trait among mammals.
So tigers have long memories and sharp claws? 😬
I do think you're on to something about evolution here, CynthiaW below as well. Being able to match patterns quickly is often a survival skill, so that it bleeds over into relationships makes sense.
Many common traits or behaviors boil down to minimizing both effort and downside risk. This certainly implies a natural selection reason behind them.
If the question is "should we or should we not pay attention to our feelings," then it seems like the correct answer is "pay attention to what you're feeling, then use your reasoning abilities to account for the feelings and correlate them with facts to get a complete picture. And finally, take a reading with your moral compass about what to do then."
I've had some form of implicit bias training by a former employer; it was termed "unconscious bias" and examples were given. And once I understood the concept (and began to monitor myself for it) I realized that Corporate was itself engaging in unconscious bias in certain areas that had an impact on me. I wondered why, if I could figure this out, why couldn't they? Maybe those guys don't have to take the training themselves.
This is how I try to do it, I know what my feelings are first...Then I think about why I feel that way, especially when my logical side seems to think something is off here...I have a dislike for a new columnist on The Bulwark, and I can't for the life of me figure out why I don't like her...( I rarely dislike anyone)...After reading others' opinions, I think I am close to figuring out the problem ( she writes well, she is personable, just something seems off about her. It is possible it isn't bias as others have concerns too, but I will figure it out. I could be right, as I normally have instincts about people that turn out to be true.
As a start, they're corporate. That automatically selects for a lot of undesirable traits, including absence of unconscious bias. (Per corporate, I'm biased. I understand it, recognize it's necessity, and know myself a little bit, that's why I've never gone near it.)
I painted a long leaf pine tree that is recognizably a long leaf pine tree. Yay, me!
Cool, I have tried painting etc, I love it but ,I just don't have the skill set
I don't have any skill, either, but it's not too hard to make a tree look like a tree.
I hand draw them when I doodle...but, it is mainly a trunk and some branches...lol
Oil, watercolor, acrylic, or finger?
Watercolor.
Cool. I paint with watercolor. The way the pigments blend into nice watercolor "paper" always fascinates me. If you look at nice watercolor "paper" under a microscope, it looks like smooth strands of spaghetti. It's actually not paper; it's cotton fabric. You probably know that already, but I like to say it.
You're saying you painted a picture of the tree, not that you applied paint directly to the tree while leaving it recognizable? ;)
you beat me to that one!
Correct. There is a house nearby called The Painted Palm Tree. It has a palm tree in front with paint on it.
A deeper dive on "bias"!! Ha. I left Academia, ie graduated, over half a century ago. When I was 10, half a century before that was the battle of Ypres and Somme!!
I'd like to pursue the conversational discussion of "bias", in several ways.
First, the world of reasoning, I posit is composed of two types, inductive and deductive. We all know these, so allow some DougAz here 🐰
Deductive reasoning, purely, is only met in mathematics. Not statistics, but geometry and some others. I had a CEO boss, in optics, who gave 3x more crowded slides to the Board, than GE taught. His theory, as optical engineering is; that given all information, rational deduction by all will derive the same conclusion (understanding).
Inductive reasoning, I argue, generally and mostly precedes deductive reasoning. We make hypothesis (ideas of..) and the gathering data; information.
Inductive reasoning is why I found enjoyment and similarities from my (ha failed!) Theoretical physics non-career into my reasonably successful marketing career. Marketing as I practice is founded on a core principle: needs pre-exist. They need "stimulated" to be "discovered". Sometimes, Product/market geniuses can inductive (intuit) these needs. Steve Jobs is the greatest exemplary.
These two work together. And ideally, as in great product development/prkduct marketing; are iterative. See Toyota product development cycle rate in the 1980s -90s. In my JV with a Japanese materials company, I saw this and was duly impressed.
So back to Bias.
In Deductive reasoning, if followed logically, Bias comes from incomplete sets that prescribe a more limited "box of data" to analyze. You set limited boundaries via bias. Either unknowingly or deliberately to force a deduction. We see this most commonly in political sciences, IMHO.
You never ever see this in optical design and engineering. Turns out, that optics is the only engineering discipline that the literally works first time from Design. Because it goes to the 7th to 9th decimal place.
Inductive reasoning, the questions of thinking, stem, arguably, from one's internal deductive box of knowledge. Newton said to Hoooke: "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants".
Inductive and deductive reasoning then, have a coupled existence!
Imagine a [] box. Deductive. Imagine a hypothesis from your box.
/
[/]
The experimentalist ie, us! Goes and gets data to... make the box cover the hypothesis.
But sometimes, the data says nope. Your bigger box needs a different line!! A new hypothesis based on iterative collection of data/information.
|
[ || ]
so natural bias, our "priors", is resolved by iterative curiosity fulfillment, or technically, getting more data.
We live in a world built on deductive logic. Kurt won't build a bridge on a hypothesis!! You don't fly an airplane built only Inductive logic. Hard engineering, is required by safety, reliability, cost, to iteratively work out bias.
What do you think!!
I think you're on to a large set of questions, but overall you've got something.
I will fiddle around with a hypothesis for hours/days/years to see if something holds up. I sure won't try to build it until I know for sure. OTOH, my 100 year old apartment building is my laboratory. I've done stuff, and still do stuff, experimentally because the building industry is ossified and I wonder if some weird thing will work. I don't experiment where there's life or personal safety hazard, but if it's a benign operation, I'm all over it.
My current experiments have to do with lime mortar. I've been doing masonry repair with St Astier #3 Lime from France and pure masons sand... no Portland. The results are amazing. The engineers told me it doesn't work. It does.
Hmmm, I think there's a lot of merit to this.
I don't think the issue is bias as much as incomplete information, or incomplete knowledge of how something is to be used. When I worked for the US Navy, we had to teach young engineers how to improve their designs, as they had not incorporated all the relevant information needed for their design into their design.
We created a program called "design for manufacturability"; older engineers and guys on the shop floor would teach young engineers insights into what might improve their designs. A simple example was not to put a hole in metal too close to a bend in the metal, as bending the metal would change (ever so slightly) the shape and size of the hole. I shared the idea with my oldest son, who got it, sharing an example where a design failed because the original design was made for different conditions than how it was to be used in the current design.
So yeah, it's iterative. It's good to have a wide variety of people looking over stuff, applying their own expertise to show how flaws can appear. I remember advice given for the original Apple II; drop it from about a foot from the desktop, to help parts "settle in". It appears to have worked.
Thanks Jay!
I worked with Value Analysis a lot, as the 80s were the heyday of engineering plastics replacing multiple automotive components in new car designs. And we also used DFMA, and learned a lot from Boothroyd and Dewhurst from RISD. https://www.dfma.com/origins.asp
Which I'm sure you know. That was a very fun time as engineering changed from Wood desks, t-squares and slopes to the new CAE. 1st mainframe, then Sun/Apollo and then desktop Solid Works.
I remember autocad from my time there, the gold standard for CAE. When my oldest went to college 20 years later, he had kinda heard of it in the same way he had heard of slide rules! 🤦♂️ I felt old! 😢
I created some office layouts in autocad, which our Public Works officer refused to consider; but his subordinate took mine, added it as a layer, then added in the stuff they specialize in (electrical).
It was a special time IMHO. The real white collar revolution and under appreciated/valued white collar productivity that was so dramatic.
Using the box to illustrate deductive reasoning and the hypothesis to illustrate inductive reasoning is helpfully concrete. I am always looking for different ways to explain those types of concepts. Thanks.
My pleasure!! And thanks LucyT
I'm impressed.
Thanks Cynthia!
We did about 11 miles on gravel yesterday (stunning scenery) and 34 miles on the road. Today we head toward Moab. We are riding in Paradox Valley. The paradox is that the river runs perpendicular rather than parallel to the valley. We rode the route south yesterday and today we are riding it north. I didn’t really enjoy the almost two mile descent because I knew I’d be climbing back up it today.
I've done that! It's a ride. The scenery is magnificent and (almost) makes up for the brutal return climb.
I can not imagine biking on gravel for pleasure. What size was it? I am imagining #57 stone - half inch to inch an a half.
Imagine a crushed rock bike trail with soft sandy spots, washboard and bigger rocks here and there. It’s not like a Midwest gravel road.
A Midwest gravel road was what I was imagining! What you describe sounds much better.
It's an "engineered stone" installation that's been weathered. It's better than a gravel road that's engineered for cars, but it's still brutal on the way back up.
My son and I did a hiking trip to Canyonlands and MTB in Moab area a few years ago. It is unique and beautiful scenery. We live only 4 hours or so east of there and really want to spend more time in the Utah parks. Somehow we always seem too busy doing other stuff.
I think you’re close-ish to where we are….Naturita.
We are in Carbondale, about 150 miles east. I was in western CO a few weeks ago in Fruita, at the Desert Rats half marathon trail run. That week it was a little warm! Especially for running. Weather here is great today, with much reduced winds. I hope it's the same in Naturita!
Is riding on gravel as disagreeable as walking on gravel?
"Gravel" is a misnomer. It's an engineered stone application. They (who are they?) used stone sized, washed, and distributed with the idea that people would be walking on it. At least, that's what it looked like to me.
Walking on rocks hurts. Dirt is much better.
"Rocks" doesn't describe it either. Most folks don't know about engineered stone applications. Folks study this stuff and choose aggregate appropriate to the intended purpose. If that means walking on it, it's a mix of aggregate that compacts, settles in, doesn't shift around, and provides a reasonably stable waking surface. Water will drain through it but not erode it because someone was thinking about that part too.
It's true: I don't know about engineered stone applications.
It's a job for a soils engineer, known amongst non-soils engineers as a dirt nerd.
That’s one of those areas (shape of dirt and gravel) where you don’t appreciate the complexity behind it, and then you go down that rabbit hole, and it’s like whole new expanses of terra incognita open up in front of your eyes…
You’d be able to manage well walking on it.
It's Friday. So happy Friday to all. And to old friend who shows up here occasionally, JohnM ! And to Angie, another wonderful friend
Hi Doug, thanks
Cheers Angie !!
Katie is off today. I plan to work, but also take time to do stuff with her. I may mow the backyard, even get out my kombi-tool. I have 3-4 attachments for it, including a leaf blower. We call it the "nuclear leaf blower".
Around Halloween two years ago I bought a 6' skeleton for our youngest, who brought it home. We laid it in the basement, in Katie's quilt room. I successfully avoided the temptation to have it kneel behind a tv, so it would be watching her quilt. Although I did tuck it into the guest bed in there, in hopes the doggos won't hop up on it.
I'm a fan of Stihl tools. Still family owned.
The kombi-tool looks like a fun tool! All it would do here, is blow dust, seeds and pollen, and spark a wildfire unprobably…but possible! Enjoy!
A very fine illustration of bias Jay!
Thanks for the insight, Jay. I think the problem for me is I’m an adult and I don’t want other adults morality training me. I’ve got that covered already.
It's a situation where a general concept might be useful to you in understanding yourself better, but building it into a system turns out badly for people except the ones making money off it.
Bingo. It's kinda tangential to Goodhart's Law...When a measure becomes a target, it stops being a good measure. When a goal becomes a target for monetization, it stops being a goal...or something like that. I'm stretching here, trying to appear smart.
Trying to appear smart is something I do, as well.
Me too
You're better at it than I am.
It's nice of you to say that!
It’s working!
Where the DEI movement failed was in moving from aspiration to condescension and guilt. DiAngelo and Kendri were grifters (ironically, Diangelo appears to have been a plagiarist as well), who relied on guilt. I think messages of hope, of appealing to people wanting to be a better version of themselves are best. But then again, I am an idealist at heart.
I watched Matt Walsh's movie 'Am I racist', expecting it to be a Sascha Cohen Baron treatment of DEI, and in many ways it was (and like SCB, it had funny moments in it). The scary part for me was when he tried to see how far people would take the training before realizing it was fake, and they went very far. There's an ethical issue there, a concern I have with both Walsh and SCB, for the same reason.
Good observations.
Good morning. Insightful article, Jay!. Summerlike weather here, with the current temp 78, reaching 80 degrees later, possibly rain. It was in the 80s and humid yesterday.
The mothership is covering GOP negotiations over Trump's "big beautiful bill" for budget reconciliation, extending the Trump tax cuts, cutting spending (which may, or may not, impact Medicaid). FP's TGIF is titled "The Emir of Ameirca" and leads off with comoentary about Trump's favored refugees -- white Afrikanners from South Africa mfleeing violence.
I haven't yet turned off the furnace, as we have had chilly nights the past few weeks, but I opened the windows about two weeks ago (closing them at night). I am getting the hint from Katie she wants the a/c on. I might have to give in on this one!
Love this, Jay. I can’t think of current examples too much but I had a textbook case in my work life. Imagine someone with the charm of Steven Miller, the brains of Elon and the ideas of Peter Navarro. I literally felt I was in spiritual warfare with each interaction, maybe I was! BUT he was a dead ringer (physically) for my first long term boyfriend (PH-pre Hubs) who was killed in a car crash 🥴 My OPINION of him was accurate…a complete 💩 and everyone agreed. But in retrospect I believe the bias did affect my ability to go for his throat (professionally) when it was called for. He certainly didn’t hold his fire on me.
Thanks Denise!
Whew! That is a great example.
Although I didn't include it, there's an example in the sports world. General managers (who draft and sign players) know they often assume players who look similar often get the implicit bias, mostly in the player's favor. One exercise they use is to require any comparison to be someone who looks nothing like them. One way they do that is to require "opposite race" comparisons. So a skinny baby-faced shooter who is black won't get compared to Steph Curry, but to a white player, and visa versa. It is tougher for European players, which is also why they can be a bit more hit 'n miss. There's some thought the recent Luka Doncic trade may have been made due to some implicit bias on the new GM's part.
Ah, never knew that bc I don’t follow sports enough to know names. But I do think athletes need thick skin because it seems they’re reduced to inanimate objects instead of humans. Sorry, Luca, your image is causing us some heartburn.
This just in....
"The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is reviewing a proposal for a reality TV show titled The American, which envisions immigrants competing in challenges across the country for a chance to expedite their U.S. citizenship, there is no evidence that Secretary Noem has endorsed or is involved with the project. DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin confirmed that the concept is under review but denied that Secretary Noem had read the pitch, despite claims by unnamed sources that she supports the project . 
The show’s concept was developed by producer Rob Worsoff, known for his work on Duck Dynasty, and has been pitched to DHS in the past during the Obama and Biden administrations without success . Currently, the proposal is undergoing a thorough vetting process as part of DHS’s routine review of numerous TV show proposals each year. 
In summary, while DHS is considering the reality show concept, there is no substantiated evidence that Kristi Noem is backing or has endorsed the proposal."
Is this a great country, or what?
It's a great country because people can come up with crazy ideas and other people can point out the, um, flaws in their ideas and even mock them.
I refuse to give in to the darkness of the times by adding, "for now, anyway."
Maybe they could get Mastercard or Visa to sponsor the show, where they come out with a special "Platinum Card", for the high net worth individuals. 🤦♂️
I suspect the idea will get 86'd.
Excellent idea.
I was hoping we could turn it into a stereotype operation, with people from Russia having to compete in log rolling or axe throwing. Have Hispanics do rodeo and then dance to oompah music. Chinese people could do chopsticks dexterity competition and then compete in math-lete battles.
The judges would be a bunch of white fraternity bros from Dartmouth that sit in Barcaloungers drinking beer watching it all on an 9' TV while exhorting the contestants to excel, high fiving each other while shouting ethnic slurs.
This reminds me of the Jeff Foxworthy "Redneck Olympics" video.
That's funny.
Ew.
It is a great country, in spite of its proportion of goofballs and raving loons and Congressmen.
Yes!
And Senators.
I was lumping them with Congressmen, but splitting them for special opprobrium also works.
I love that word. Opprobrium. It sounds exactly like what it means. Just saying it makes me want to adopt a deep basso profundo tone. Kinda like "rapprochement"; it sounds like what it means, and when I say it, I unconsciously inflect the tonality with a positive vibe.
I have this weird delight with many words that start with O.. Obsequious, Ostantatious, Onomotopoeia, I love saying them out loud.
I think that's because I think the sound like what they mean... :-)
Rapprochement. We're all hanging at the bar, having some drinks and snacks and listening to Jimmy Buffett.
Jimmy....rapprochement personified. Makes me wanna be there.
So, when I see a picture of Stephen Miller next to one of Joseph Goebbels and draw some comparisons, is that an example of implicit bias?
Hi John...how's things?
Long time no "talk"
I do exactly the same thing every time I see that twerp. It's also tacit bias. AI told me so.
Good thing I don't know what Stephen Miller looks like (and I don't remember Göbbels's phooto).