Some of the most useful tools excite little remark. We take them for granted yet validate them through daily use. Consider the can opener. The British Navy first fielded the tin can circa 1810 as a means of preserving military rations on long hauls between reliable food sources. At the time, the can was so handy that its obvious utility overtook as trivial the question of how the user was to open it. Indeed, for some 60 years, bayonets, farm tools, and any implements at hand became the standard means of making a can release its contents. True, the first metal cans were so thick that chisels or rifle fire were sometimes necessary to pierce them. Why would anyone of the time expect otherwise? Lacking the news magazine, self-revealing culture, and safety regulations of today, history hardly did justice in recording the injuries and maiming that resulted from early encounters between can and aspiring opener of same. It is to American ingenuity that the can opener owes its creation (C. Panati, Panati’s Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things, 1987, New York: Harper & Row, pp. 115-116). Thumbs, hands, and limbs formerly threatened by blade and mallet have since been spared enough trauma to surely qualify the invention for some safety award. Where is it, however? The lowly can opener lingers in obscurity, unloved yet at times indispensable.
What about the band-aid? It traces to a need to solve a very specific problem. The problem was that a cotton-buyer’s wife regularly suffered minor cuts and burns in 1920 while preparing meals. These injuries were hardly serious. At the same time, they were difficult to treat on one’s own. To help out his wife with this problem, the cotton-buyer started stretching out adhesive strips over cotton balls and then covering them with a crinoline strip, leaving them ready for his wife’s self-application in his absence, which was when she needed them most. The husband told his employer, Johnson & Johnson, about what he had done, and the band-aid was born. (For additional historical details, see http://www.band-aid.com/brand-heritage.)
Today band-aid is not just a brand name but a generic label for mass-produced, sterile strip bandages. It is also a pejorative term applied to quick fixes, i.e. band-aid solutions, of the sort implied to be inhospitable to nuance. Only recently has a contrarian voice offered an alternative analysis. Says Malcolm Gladwell, “The band-aid solution is actually the best kind of solution because it involves solving a problem with the minimum amount of effort and time and cost… There are times when we need a convenient shortcut, a way to make a lot out of a little…” (The Tipping Point, 2002, New York: Little, Brown and Company, pp. 256-257).
In the days since the creation of can opener and band-aid, we have cultivated a love-affair with complex solutions. We have concurrently seen the rise of skepticism over the boons of technology. This opposing view can also go too far. When our astronauts noted the difficulty of writing notes while floating upside down in zero gravity, what did we do? We designed and mass produced the space pen. What did Russian cosmonauts do on encountering the same problem? They used a pencil – or so goes the popular myth. In reality, pencils failed cosmonauts and astronauts both. Their tips broke off and pencils themselves were flammable – two undesirable traits for a space capsule. In the end, astronauts and cosmonauts both came to rely on the Fisher Space Pen, and their employers purchased them in bulk at the same discount (Ciara Curtin, December 12, 2006. "Fact or fiction?: NASA spent millions to develop a pen that would write in space, whereas the Soviet cosmonauts used a pencil," Scientific American).
Why do innovations like these lag behind the problem they were designed to solve?
On the one hand, the innovations follow only when inspired by sufficient need. On the other hand, wasn’t the need there to begin with? Perhaps, but even need may be relative. When the metal can made its debut, the driving need was to find a way to feed a navy at sea. That need took precedence over delivering a safe, convenient means of opening the canister. Hungry sailors equipped with weapons could be trusted to figure out that particular challenge. Perhaps, in the pre-band-aid world, one was expected to develop more calluses and either shrug off cuts and burns or call a doctor for whom house calls were routine. The real need for mass produced band-aids came later, in military hospitals, where the advantages of small, sterile bandages paid for themselves in labor savings and infection control. Finally, the space pen’s own performance requirement would have been impossible to specify without first experiencing the frustration and failure of pencils and other writing instruments under zero gravity. The burned hand teaches best. After that, advice about the fire is taken to heart. Sometimes we can think ahead to spare the scars. Other times, we must find ways to learn by doing, accumulating scar tissue, yet also concurrently taking advantage of adverse experience by using it as a way to develop the specifications that will ultimately drive an innovative solution, hence the can opener, the band-aid, and the space pen.
Now, imagine this process in the context of what should and should not be happening for passenger screening at airports. Are body scans working? Are strip-searches of octogenarians effective? Are we overrelying on technology or not getting enough out of it? Are we looking for trauma medicine where band-aids would do? Or are we choosing band-aids to do the work of tourniquets?
-- Nick Catrantzos
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Thursday, February 9, 2012
Deadly Price for Missing Deception
From news accounts, Josh Powell saw his world closing in and his ability to continue to dodge charges of uxoricide shrinking more and more. The media and his in-laws were hounding him as the most likely suspect in the disappearance and presumed murder of his wife, Susan. His alibi strained credulity. Why would one parent take two toddlers camping in freezing weather on the day of his wife’s disappearance? More recently, in-laws were claiming that Powell’s children were starting to verbalize damning clues of skullduggery, with the elder son referring to that fateful camping trip as one in which mommy traveled in the trunk before disappearing. Even a judge denied Powell’s petition to gain child custody, opting instead for supervised visitation. So Powell prepared for this event by saying goodbye to his lawyer in an e-mail and by slamming the door on the contract social worker who came along to supervise what was the last visit Powell would have with these children. The contract worker, in reporting this surprise to her boss and 911 also said she smelled gas. Moments later, the residence exploded in flames, taking the lives of Powell and the two children.
It is now a moot point to argue that Powell murdered his wife and, seeing authorities steadily closing in and his children about to be taken away permanently, added the murder of his children to his ignominy. However, one of the first stories to carry this news also carried with it Powell’s own words which should have sent not only red flags but signal flares highlighting deception from Powell’s statement half a year ago issued in apparent denial of having murdered his spouse. The statement in question appeared only in an early Associated Press story, but not in subsequent news clippings focusing on the death of these children. What was it and what were the telltale indicators of deception?
The Damning Denials
"I would never even hurt her," a tearful, red-eyed Josh Powell told CBS' Early Show in August. "People who know me know that I could never hurt Susan." (Available on February 5, 2012 at http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_16026/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=QvhbZOTV
Indicators of Deception
First, note how Powell did not directly deny having actually injured or even killed his wife Susan at a given point in time. Instead, he appeared to have answered a direct question or accusation with a policy statement and then amplified it with an implied testimonial. The policy statement is a deceiver’s tactic to avoid the stress of replying to a direct question by shifting the conversation to theoretical terms. This is like hearing someone who fears malaria and has just swatted a handful of mosquitoes tell an animal-rights activist that he “would never hurt a fly.” The theoretical “would never” position is far removed from an explicit, “did not do it” kind of denial.
Second, innocent people do not need to summon character references before stating categorically that they did not inflict harm. However, when a trust betrayer gratuitously calls on unidentified “people who know me” to testify to his character, this represents another indicator of deception.
Finally, note how even this testimonial lacks the strength of specificity or of a clear alibi, such as one would expect of actual witnesses who can account for the deceiver’s movements at a particular time and place. Instead, by saying such “people” can only attest that Powell “could never hurt” his wife, vagueness again replaces specificity. How can any outsider “know” whether one person “could” hurt another, unless the first person is disabled and physically incapable of doing so? Again, this is a sign of deception and the kind of attempt to avoid an outright denial while redirecting the focus of questions elsewhere. Deceivers consistently use such tactics for two reasons: (a) avoiding the stress of a direct denial and the probing questions that might accompany it, and (b) avoiding the chance of falling into a trap where they worry about what investigators or witnesses may have discovered and therefore do not want to dwell on topics of location, time, and circumstances where prolonged discussion could result in giving themselves away.
Lesson
When dealing of a trust betrayer of the worst kind in a critical situation that shows every sign of being a matter of life or death, it is important to anticipate the worst case. Authorities were closing in on Josh Powell, and he knew it. His in-laws were keeping up enough pressure to keep alive negative press. There were no other suspects. Anyone schooled in the detection of deception could see that Powell was at least being deceptive about the circumstances of his wife’s disappearance. As the wheels of the justice system rolled cautiously forward, the concern for making an unshakeable case for a successful murder conviction probably resulted in a self-donning of blinders to the ramifications of waiting to make the perfect case for prosecution. Hindsight is always easier to invoke, but it would have been an act of common sense and bureaucratic courage to weigh the signs of deception and keep those kids out of the reach of Josh Powell when the latter had nothing to lose and every sign of homicidal and suicidal tendencies. In retrospect, any visitation should have been at a controlled facility with Powell fully searched and supervision provided by armed and able-bodied police capable of intervening before Powell could inflict harm on defenseless innocents.
-- Nick Catrantzos
It is now a moot point to argue that Powell murdered his wife and, seeing authorities steadily closing in and his children about to be taken away permanently, added the murder of his children to his ignominy. However, one of the first stories to carry this news also carried with it Powell’s own words which should have sent not only red flags but signal flares highlighting deception from Powell’s statement half a year ago issued in apparent denial of having murdered his spouse. The statement in question appeared only in an early Associated Press story, but not in subsequent news clippings focusing on the death of these children. What was it and what were the telltale indicators of deception?
The Damning Denials
"I would never even hurt her," a tearful, red-eyed Josh Powell told CBS' Early Show in August. "People who know me know that I could never hurt Susan." (Available on February 5, 2012 at http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_16026/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=QvhbZOTV
Indicators of Deception
First, note how Powell did not directly deny having actually injured or even killed his wife Susan at a given point in time. Instead, he appeared to have answered a direct question or accusation with a policy statement and then amplified it with an implied testimonial. The policy statement is a deceiver’s tactic to avoid the stress of replying to a direct question by shifting the conversation to theoretical terms. This is like hearing someone who fears malaria and has just swatted a handful of mosquitoes tell an animal-rights activist that he “would never hurt a fly.” The theoretical “would never” position is far removed from an explicit, “did not do it” kind of denial.
Second, innocent people do not need to summon character references before stating categorically that they did not inflict harm. However, when a trust betrayer gratuitously calls on unidentified “people who know me” to testify to his character, this represents another indicator of deception.
Finally, note how even this testimonial lacks the strength of specificity or of a clear alibi, such as one would expect of actual witnesses who can account for the deceiver’s movements at a particular time and place. Instead, by saying such “people” can only attest that Powell “could never hurt” his wife, vagueness again replaces specificity. How can any outsider “know” whether one person “could” hurt another, unless the first person is disabled and physically incapable of doing so? Again, this is a sign of deception and the kind of attempt to avoid an outright denial while redirecting the focus of questions elsewhere. Deceivers consistently use such tactics for two reasons: (a) avoiding the stress of a direct denial and the probing questions that might accompany it, and (b) avoiding the chance of falling into a trap where they worry about what investigators or witnesses may have discovered and therefore do not want to dwell on topics of location, time, and circumstances where prolonged discussion could result in giving themselves away.
Lesson
When dealing of a trust betrayer of the worst kind in a critical situation that shows every sign of being a matter of life or death, it is important to anticipate the worst case. Authorities were closing in on Josh Powell, and he knew it. His in-laws were keeping up enough pressure to keep alive negative press. There were no other suspects. Anyone schooled in the detection of deception could see that Powell was at least being deceptive about the circumstances of his wife’s disappearance. As the wheels of the justice system rolled cautiously forward, the concern for making an unshakeable case for a successful murder conviction probably resulted in a self-donning of blinders to the ramifications of waiting to make the perfect case for prosecution. Hindsight is always easier to invoke, but it would have been an act of common sense and bureaucratic courage to weigh the signs of deception and keep those kids out of the reach of Josh Powell when the latter had nothing to lose and every sign of homicidal and suicidal tendencies. In retrospect, any visitation should have been at a controlled facility with Powell fully searched and supervision provided by armed and able-bodied police capable of intervening before Powell could inflict harm on defenseless innocents.
-- Nick Catrantzos
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