At 5:52 -0800 3/18/04, Phillip Good wrote:
As I suspected you are unable to offer a single justification for your actions just as Rumsfield was unable to offer a single justification for his...
I cannot help but to send my $0.02 worth in
defense of the Secretaty of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, who, in my
opinion, did a rather excellent job in putting what us human factors
folks have long been trying to grasp in a layman's language (I also
think that the Plain English Campaign's premier Foot In Mouth
trophy he received was utterly undeserved!). It is the
unknown unknowns that James Reason ("Human Error," 1990)
called "latent errors" and that are the most insidious form
of human error, often taking operators of complex systems completely
unawares and resulting in large-scale catastrophes. What
"known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns" have to do
with statistics was, again IMHO, eloquently and succinctly captured by
George Box in his often quoted statement. When we model reality,
it is of utmost importance to at least have some qualitative sense of
by how much and to what direction the models' outputs differ from the
true state of the world. To uncritically take models as
representative of reality, that is, to forget or ignore the
"known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns" is a
dangerous folly.
Esa
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Esa M. Rantanen, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Institute of Aviation, Aviation Human Factors Division
Assistant Professor
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Institute of Aviation, Aviation Human Factors Division
Willard Airport-One Airport Road, Q5,
MC-394
Savoy, IL 61874
Tel. 217-244-8657 (AHFD)
Tel. 217-244-7397 (Psych.)
Tel. 217-373-8276 (Home)
Fax 217-244-8647
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Savoy, IL 61874
Tel. 217-244-8657 (AHFD)
Tel. 217-244-7397 (Psych.)
Tel. 217-373-8276 (Home)
Fax 217-244-8647
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
url:
http://www.humanfactors.uiuc.edu
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