Our universities, the media, and the Democrat Party lead the charge to political correctness and groupthink. We must have uniformity of thought, language, and behavior. Uniformity, uniformity, uniformity goes the cry. I spent more than 40 years in manufacturing, all of it involving technology and quality assurance. A saying in my field a…
Our universities, the media, and the Democrat Party lead the charge to political correctness and groupthink. We must have uniformity of thought, language, and behavior. Uniformity, uniformity, uniformity goes the cry. I spent more than 40 years in manufacturing, all of it involving technology and quality assurance. A saying in my field attributed to Edward Deming is considered to be profound :
Uncontrolled Variation is the Enemy of Quality
We’re all in favor of quality aren’t we? Deming is surely right so let’s control or eliminate variation.
There is another side to that coin of my own formulation:
Scientists learn by conducting experiments in which they change input conditions and study output results. If a plant manager hires engineers only from one college or university he greatly weakens design and problem solving capability. If our schools succeed with their current drive to uniformity, they will simultaneously defeat their primary purpose, the discovery, propagation, and preservation of knowledge. We taxpayers should not allow government to continue pouring money into the current education system. Uniformity in hiring is not helpful, nor is tenure. Peer review is of no value once reviewers are weeded to be of like mind. If "publish or perish" is the maxim, no one will care if published work can't be reproduced. Professional societies are of little value if they serve only to enforce conformity, say by having outgoing officers serve as a nominating committee for next year's officers, or by nominating a single individual for each office, i.e. offering no real choice. Getting a PhD degree requires original research, i.e. research on a unique topic after having reviewed "all" the prior literature on the topic. Then your advisor says you now know more about this topic than anyone else in the world. Thus you are now an expert or elite with a credential to prove it. With this certificate most simply move to a different university to start teaching and in many cases advising new graduate students to repeat the process. This constantly moves a profession into the realm of extremes.
Our universities, the media, and the Democrat Party lead the charge to political correctness and groupthink. We must have uniformity of thought, language, and behavior. Uniformity, uniformity, uniformity goes the cry. I spent more than 40 years in manufacturing, all of it involving technology and quality assurance. A saying in my field attributed to Edward Deming is considered to be profound :
Uncontrolled Variation is the Enemy of Quality
We’re all in favor of quality aren’t we? Deming is surely right so let’s control or eliminate variation.
There is another side to that coin of my own formulation:
Uniformity is the Enemy of Knowledge©
Scientists learn by conducting experiments in which they change input conditions and study output results. If a plant manager hires engineers only from one college or university he greatly weakens design and problem solving capability. If our schools succeed with their current drive to uniformity, they will simultaneously defeat their primary purpose, the discovery, propagation, and preservation of knowledge. We taxpayers should not allow government to continue pouring money into the current education system. Uniformity in hiring is not helpful, nor is tenure. Peer review is of no value once reviewers are weeded to be of like mind. If "publish or perish" is the maxim, no one will care if published work can't be reproduced. Professional societies are of little value if they serve only to enforce conformity, say by having outgoing officers serve as a nominating committee for next year's officers, or by nominating a single individual for each office, i.e. offering no real choice. Getting a PhD degree requires original research, i.e. research on a unique topic after having reviewed "all" the prior literature on the topic. Then your advisor says you now know more about this topic than anyone else in the world. Thus you are now an expert or elite with a credential to prove it. With this certificate most simply move to a different university to start teaching and in many cases advising new graduate students to repeat the process. This constantly moves a profession into the realm of extremes.