Siegel's comments

[John <jsdwd@ksc.th.com>]

I must confess I am somewhat mystified by Mr. Jonathon Siegel's post on
"Know ledge and variation: Some thoughts on Deming and Fisher".  In his post
he cites and email posted earlier to this group by  me and I'm at a loss as
to where he concludes that my earlier post (Subj.:  That Paper) says
anything much about knowledge, and I don't believe it mentions variation at
all.

He characterizes my remarks as part of a "main stream of Deming
criticism..." and says that I  'associate Deming and the quality movement
with conformity' and argue that 'too much conformity is a bad thing'.

First, my post was my report about what an author had written and not an
essay...more of a 'book report' format.  I said in my report that the author
(about whom I was reporting) had (to the extent he said anything even
remotely coherent) raised that question and I posed it as well.  That is not
an 'argument' that is raising a question.  I gave no indication as to
whether or not I agreed with his points.

I cited the last paragraph (of my posting) as a joke...I thought that was
fairly obvious, but perhaps Mr. Siegel did not grasp my intent.

Anyway as I say, I'm mystified.  Perhaps I'm being obtuse, but I really
don't think my post was at all related to what Deming may or may not have
felt about conformity anywhere.

To comment on Siegel's general point, I think it's well founded.  Deming did
at one point say, "If I had to state my message as a simple concept, I'd say
it all had to do with reducing variation".   I think he was speaking
specifically in an SPC context, however, and did not pose that as a more
generalizable statement.  In any case, he backed off from that in later
years.

Particularly apt is Siegel's statement that, "In order to improve, we have
to do something different..."  Yes.  We have to (in effect) introduce a
'special cause'.  So the statement I often hear that the 'onset of special
causes is not predictable', needs to take this into account.

I would not overly tax the 'natural selection' metaphor, however.  That is
difficult ground and scientifically controversial (not to mention the
religious issues attached thereto).

Actually the Philosopher of Science, Karl Popper discussed this issue at
length in his discussion of induction.   He wrote at length about how to
design tests of theories that would improve their rigor and their
applicability and usefulness. A more recent discussion with somewhat broader
implications is in George Soros' new book on Open Society.

Mr. Siegel ends his provocative post with a P. S. which states, "This post
is deliberately fuzzy."

Unfortunately the fuzziness in my posts is not deliberate and is, therefore
either accidental or the product of what my mother always referred to as my
'fuzzy thinking'.

John Dowd
jsdwd@ksc.th.com