Re: Siegel's comments

[Jonathan Siegel <jmsiegel.info.research@worldnet.att.net>]

Dear John Dowd,

I am very sorry to have mentioned your name in connection with "That Paper". I did so only because I mistakenly thought you had originated the thread. Myron Tribus first brought "That Paper" to the DEN's attention in his post at http://deming.ces.clemson.edu/pub/den/archive/2000.09/msg00070.html under a different subject heading. The paper involved is D. Denis, "Brave New Reductionism," TQM as ethnocentrism." Education Policy Analyis Archives (1995), on the web at http://olam.ed.asu.edu/epaa/v3n9.html.  Myron believed that
"the paper contains some legitimate criticisms." As I indicated in my post, I agree with Myron on this.

I ultimately agreed with one claim in "that paper": that intellectual diversity is beneficial.. I did not and do not consider the essence of this aspect of the criticism involved to be a joke at all.

I understand that Dr. Deming, as a teacher, tried to address the individual needs of students where possible, and encourage their different interests. I do not believe his conduct as a teacher in any way reflected a Taguchi-like aim of continuously reducing variation in permissible student intellectual  interests, or conforming their behavior maximally to a target.

Sincerely,

Jonathan Siegel