On 26 Jun 2014, at 8:09 am, LizR <[email protected]> wrote:
>> In science, proof is often no more than lack of imagination. We are sure >> that B must have been caused by A simply because we cannot imagine any other >> cause. So many errors in science have arisen just from this obvious >> limitation. ...and Liz responded wearing her Yellow Hat (hY: seeking the benfits of an idea) > > That isn't how I am told science is supposed to function, but I assume this > does happen. But aren't there a lot of checks against this sort of thing > going mainstream (peer review, independent replication etc?) Keeping the hY in place for a moment: There are. This is the truly wonderful thing about the scientific method. Everybody checks their perception to find the common ground or to give each other the opportunity to correct what may be a faulty perception. This is the opposite of dogmatic insistence. Scientists are trained to know the pitfalls of all thinking. The thinking 'tool' designed to make this a routine part of everyday thinking is called the 'OPV'. This acronym stands for 'Other People's Views'. The need for such a thing is nowhere more apparent than in situations of conflict. In conflict situations people square-off against each other and allow their values and beliefs to run the thinking process. This must be the case because if people excluded their values and their beliefs from their thinking there would be no conflict. If, as David Perkins of Harvard has said, it is the case that up to 97% of all supposed errors of thinking are really errors of perception, then most conflicts or argument situations are where people are opposing their perceptions. Because values and beliefs are involved, thinking goes out the window, it usually gets quite heated and emotions and feelings become part of the equation. If you are the mediator you then have to bite the bullet and work exclusively with the individuals' perceptions of what they think is going on. You then say to A "Do me an OPV on B's position in the matter of X." This is a mental routine that is run without comment or analysis. You then require B to perform the same algorithm on A's position. The idea is that each party in the conflict is given the opportunity to correct the other's perception of whatever is at issue. The underlying agenda is that if people really cannot do any better than argue the toss about something as a way of moving forward then they had best argue about the same thing, not different things. The OPV tool should be part of everyone's mental toolkit. When someone says something to you, you will almost certainly react to what they say. This is the proof that you are alive, so to speak. But, instead of saying to them "You are so full of shit you little diaper nugget, you think you know everything, don't you?" You might alternatively say "Let me see if I understand you correctly. You are saying, are you not, that......" ...and the other should then be motivated to bounce back to you their version of what they think you are saying. In the edu-world, where I work, this is often referred to as "active listening" or "reflective listening" and is encouraged. I prefer the tools approach of de Bono, since language is a thousand-headed hydra and people, given the chance will slip in all sorts of agendas into their explications and justifications disguised as rational logic. Everyone has either the Red Hat or the Black Hat araldited to their skulls. With the tools approach, you have something in your hand that has a prescribed function, like a hammer. With open slather to use language any way you want, you have the possibility of an itinerary that takes you to Washington VIA Helsinki AND Sydney. Language is an itinerary. A tool is a destination, because it is an object and formalised as such by the brain when the associated routine is run. There are thousands and thousands of people around the globe designing software for computers. Very few design software for the human mind to run on. Kim -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
