Eric Bohlman wrote:
> Try reading _Out of the Crisis_ and _The New Economics_. You may very
> well find yourself disagreeing with some of his assertions,
>
Another good one: Henry Neave, _The Deming Dimension_. It has a more
sophisticated (but still pretty lightweight for readers of this newsgroup)
discussion of the statistical principles. There is indeed lots of controversy,
including the assertion that we should abandon using probability models for most
of what we statisticians do. It is certainly contentious, but makes for great
discussion!
Eric, I am glad to see that Deming is still around, at least for some of us. I
really wondered if his message had been lost in the current climate of economic
prosperity. After all, it was economic crisis that brought him into vogue in the
80's, right? Well, maybe what goes around comes around...
I must admit that it is quite difficult to implement his suggestions in my
teaching environment. However, the method seems to be more of a direction
(vision, perhaps) than a final stopping place. There is much value in reading
the ideas, discussing them, and implementing those methods that we can.
I saw Deming speak once in 1992 and thought he was just a nutty old man. But
everyone else seemed to think that he had something on the ball, so I read a lot
about him. It has had a very positive effect on my teaching, and on my
understanding of statistics in general. But I still rank students, at one level
or another, unfortunately ... I just try to minimize that aspect and focus on
the learning environment as best I can.
Happy Holidays
Peter
