Resistance to new ideas

[Kromkowski@aol.com]

Thank you for the interesting History below from David. Here are a couple of 
thoughts/questions:

1. Pearson, Fisher and Shewart would have died before the Nobel in Economics 
was established in 1969, but Neyman was alive until 1982.  Had the Nobel 
committee ever considered: Neyman, Deming, or has it considered even the next 
generation like Wheeler.

2.  How does Robert Engle's (2003 Nobel in Economics for methods of analyzing 
economic time series with time-varying volatility) fit into the history.

3.  It seems to me that resistance to new ideas is overcome by the classic 
hypothesis testing route: That is, until the new idea is framed as  "If A, then 
B" and someone shows this to be repeatedly true, resistance to "new ideas" is 
a good thing.  I don't think Deming has been adequately put into a "If A, then 
B" format.

JDKromkowski


In a message dated 10/28/2003 5:03:50 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
den.list-d-request@deming.ces.clemson.edu writes:
From: David Kerridge 

<I have been following with interest several threads which all
<relate to the same basic problem: there is strong resistance to
<the Deming Philosophy, even in ourselves. It may help to see
<this in a wider context, which may suggest ways to overcome it.

<In the history of science resistance to new ideas is not unusual.
<There was resistance to (for example) the germ theory of disease,
<Botzmann's thermodynamics, the theory of continental drift, the
<use of statistics in medicine....

<Sometimes this may have represented the "establishment"
<protecting its position, but I think this is rarer than we might
<suppose. I would like to tell two related stories of resistance
<which still affect us, whether we realise it or not. Or perhaps
<we should call it blindness, not just resistance.

<The first concerns the statistical theory of Sir Ronald Fisher.
<He wrote on estimation and the testing of scientific theories.
<In statistics R A Fisher *was* the establishment. Yet within a
<short time his theory was displaced by the ideas of E S Pearson
<and Jerzy Neyman. Fisher never forgave them, saying that the
<new ideas were bad science. Neyman and Pearson were puzzled,
<as they thought they were simply clarifying what Fisher had said.

<Then Walter A Shewhart wrote his book on Statistical Control.
<Shewhart *was* the statistical establishment in the USA. His ideas
<were regarded as so important by E S Pearson that a special section
<of the Royal Statistical Society was set up to spread Shewhart's ideas.
<To help launch this, E S Pearson wrote a paper which "improved" on
<Shewhart's ideas, and to our way of thinking, missed the point
<completely. Yet almost all teaching on SPC ever since has been
<based on Pearson's version, rather than Shewhart's.

<All this is a matter of record, yet few people know that anything
<strange has happened. When WED introduced the distinction
<between enumerative and analytic studies, he was acting as a
<peacemaker. He said "Fisher solved the analytic problem, and
<Neyman the enumerative problem". But because most people
<are not aware of the clash between Neyman/Pearson and Fisher,
<WED's peacemaking effort has just seemed liked adding a new
<problem.

<Incidentally, WED had the greatest respect for both R A Fisher
<and Jerzy Neyman, and invited both to lecture at the US Dept
<of Agriculture. Not at the same time, of course.

<So far, this is just recorded history. I will try to comment on the
<implications of these examplesin separate postings, as I will
<necessarily be expressing a personal opinion.
<-- 
<Best wishes
<David