bilby
Fair dinkum thinkum
- Joined
- Mar 6, 2007
- Messages
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- Strong Atheist
Since March 8, a massive search has been under way for the missing 777-200ER, which left Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on a routing flight to Beijing, China, with 239 people on board, and disappeared over the South China Sea.
The disappearance of this aircraft, with so little evidence as to where it went, and why, or how it got there, has led to an almost unprecedented level of speculation; as such, it is a good case study for the way people search for truth: It is a discrete and rare event, with little apparent opportunity for prejudice - despite which, many observers seem to me to have made strenuous efforts to bend the facts to make the situation resemble (as closely as possible), prior incidents involving abnormal behaviour of aircraft, and in particular, the September 11, 2001 hijackings in the US.
The scientific approach
The professional investigators, and the more sensible lay observers, have taken a scientific approach to the issue. The first step is to learn the background, and in the case of the professional investigators, and a handful of experts, this has been a life's work. For those who have not spent an entire lifetime in the field of aviation, avionics, search and rescue, navigation, etc., etc., it is tempting to skip this stage, and rely on the 'experts' to provide the answers. This is a poor approach; without at least some personal knowledge of the background, it is impossible to determine who are experts, and who are merely confident sounding fools.
The subject of aviation appears complex, and is laden with jargon, which is designed for absolute clarity between those with the knowledge, but which can appear incomprehensible to an outsider. However an understanding of many of the key points is not hard to obtain; for example, the detailed technical specifications of the aircraft are available online, as are the details of the Air Traffic Control systems and procedures, aircraft and avionics system capabilities and design, and so on.
With the exception of the tiny number of individuals making a given observation, all of the evidence is taken on trust from somebody else, so the second stage in understanding what occurred is to decide who to believe. It should be easy to do this, as long as one has completed the first stage. If a person makes an assertion that is (or would imply) something technically or physically impossible - such as flying faster than the speed of sound, or further than the maximum range of the aircraft - then that source can be discounted as reliable,
The third stage is to assign probabilities to the information not discarded outright in stage 2; How reliable is the information likely to be? What are the limitations on what could be known? In this case, there are a number of data regarding possible positions of the aircraft after it went 'dark'; radar reports from Thai and Malaysian air force primary radars, and the 'pings' to the INMARSAT satellite, for example. The INMARSAT pings, in my opinion, are very reliable. These signals uniquely and positively identify the aircraft, and tell us that the SATCOM equipment is powered on; they also provide limited position information, in the form of the turnaround time of the 'ping'. This information is highly reliable, despite being of limited value. The radar data is the reverse - a military primary radar gives excellent and precise position data (that is what it was built to do), but how reliable is the identity of the source? There is a big difference between saying "An unidentified aircraft was in the right general area at the time and was tracked to the Andaman Sea" and saying "MH370 was tracked to the Andaman Sea".
Once we have all of the reliable data, with an understanding of the probability that it is relevant, then hypotheses can be tested against that data. Any hypothesis that conflicts with highly reliable facts must be discarded; whatever remains can be assessed on the basis of how well it fits the facts in evidence. As new facts come to light, we can trim the list of hypotheses; and as the list of possibilities grows smaller, more effort can be applied to disproving the remaining hypotheses, until either one hypothesis remains, or the plane is found.
The memory driven approach
Many people do not have the background knowledge and/or the inclination to take a scientific approach; and for these people, the answers to their questions come from experience, or history. It is noticeable when looking at comments from around the world, that Americans and Canadians are particularly drawn to the conclusion that the aircraft was stolen for use as a weapon. After all, the last time they heard about big passenger jets suddenly behaving in an abnormal manner was 9/11. This approach strikes me as being a good compromise between the unreasonable effort required to learn the details of every subject, and the desire to know what occurred. Indeed, in the context of frequent or routine events, it is a good approach to use. It falls down badly when assessing very rare events, because there simply isn't enough history to go on, and because things are not the same now as they were then. The classic example is the generals who are always ready to fight the last war all over again. The past is only a good guide to the future when the rate of change in the environment is slower than the frequency of the events in question; and for wars and commercial aircraft incidents, this is simply not the case.
Conclusion jumping
By 'Conclusion jumping', I mean the rapid adoption of an hypothesis for whatever reason, and the immediate transformation of that hypothesis into dogma. It can apply to the incident as a whole; or to specific pieces of evidence; but the key characteristic is an unwillingness to change one's mind, even in the face of overwhelming evidence. The 'Eyewitness reports' from the Maldives of an aircraft similar to the missing plane are a good example; despite repeatedly being informed that the timing of these sightings places them an hour after the aircraft would have run out of fuel, and more importantly that these reports were in conflict with the highly reliable INMARSAT data, many people persist in claiming that they must be significant. Likewise the reports of an oil rig worker seeing a burning aircraft over the South China Sea, when at the time of the report, the aircraft in question would have been below the horizon from the rig's position. Even once shown to be incompatible with far more reliable data, these reports continue to be quoted as though they were significant.
Conspiracy theorists
We are all familiar with conspiracy theorists, but in this context I am specifically referring to people who cannot accept that any event is unplanned. Accidents happen, all the time. But to the conspiracy theorist, there is no such thing as an accident - all events, particularly anything bad or unpleasant, must be due to deliberate agency. These are the people who insist that there must have been terrorists on board, or that the pilot or pilots must have been engaged in a deliberate plot to steal the plane.
Of course, some bad things are due to deliberate acts; but in the absence of a shred of hard evidence for malfeasance, assuming is existence violates parsimony. As my dad says, "Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence." In my opinion, we can add '... or misfortune' to that saying.
The echo chamber
The last, and perhaps worst, way to find out what happened is to listen to the media. They have a LOT of airtime to fill, and a tiny sprinkling of facts to discuss; and as a result they are the last place one should seek any real information. In the 21st century, we all have access via the internet, to most if not all of the primary sources used by the journalists, and those sources are far less prone to error than the news reports into which they are fed. A speculation by a supposed 'expert' who is an anonymous internet blogger, gets reported as a likelihood by a major newspaper's website, which is used as a source by a TV news show, which is picked up on by hundreds of poorly informed bloggers, who report it as hard fact, and the cycle continues. The vast majority of the news media has outlived its usefulness, and has survived by transforming itself into 'newsertainment', in which popularity with the audience is of far more importance than factual accuracy.
To me, the interesting thing about the above is not the tragic incident of the missing flight MH370 itself, so much as the illumination it casts on how people think - or how they fail to think. So many events and issues in the world, so many clearly false beliefs, stem from the misapplication of these techniques for obtaining information about the reality we occupy. In the last two weeks we have seen the birth of misinformation on a massive scale; the lies have flown around the world three times before the truth - which as of this posting is still unknown - could get its boots on.
No doubt, if the final fate of MH370 is ever known, some people will still cling to their preferred but disproven hypotheses, for the rest of their lives. I say 'if', because it is far from certain that the aircraft will ever be located; and even if it is, the 'black boxes' are unlikely to tell the whole story - particularly in the case of the CVR, which only records the last two hours of flightdeck sound. The DFDR may be more informative, but if it is found, much of what it tells will already be known from the location from which it was recovered.
People hate a mystery; and many in the modern world have come to expect 'closure' as though it was their right. But life is not a book or a movie, and there is no 'The End'.
The disappearance of this aircraft, with so little evidence as to where it went, and why, or how it got there, has led to an almost unprecedented level of speculation; as such, it is a good case study for the way people search for truth: It is a discrete and rare event, with little apparent opportunity for prejudice - despite which, many observers seem to me to have made strenuous efforts to bend the facts to make the situation resemble (as closely as possible), prior incidents involving abnormal behaviour of aircraft, and in particular, the September 11, 2001 hijackings in the US.
The scientific approach
The professional investigators, and the more sensible lay observers, have taken a scientific approach to the issue. The first step is to learn the background, and in the case of the professional investigators, and a handful of experts, this has been a life's work. For those who have not spent an entire lifetime in the field of aviation, avionics, search and rescue, navigation, etc., etc., it is tempting to skip this stage, and rely on the 'experts' to provide the answers. This is a poor approach; without at least some personal knowledge of the background, it is impossible to determine who are experts, and who are merely confident sounding fools.
The subject of aviation appears complex, and is laden with jargon, which is designed for absolute clarity between those with the knowledge, but which can appear incomprehensible to an outsider. However an understanding of many of the key points is not hard to obtain; for example, the detailed technical specifications of the aircraft are available online, as are the details of the Air Traffic Control systems and procedures, aircraft and avionics system capabilities and design, and so on.
With the exception of the tiny number of individuals making a given observation, all of the evidence is taken on trust from somebody else, so the second stage in understanding what occurred is to decide who to believe. It should be easy to do this, as long as one has completed the first stage. If a person makes an assertion that is (or would imply) something technically or physically impossible - such as flying faster than the speed of sound, or further than the maximum range of the aircraft - then that source can be discounted as reliable,
The third stage is to assign probabilities to the information not discarded outright in stage 2; How reliable is the information likely to be? What are the limitations on what could be known? In this case, there are a number of data regarding possible positions of the aircraft after it went 'dark'; radar reports from Thai and Malaysian air force primary radars, and the 'pings' to the INMARSAT satellite, for example. The INMARSAT pings, in my opinion, are very reliable. These signals uniquely and positively identify the aircraft, and tell us that the SATCOM equipment is powered on; they also provide limited position information, in the form of the turnaround time of the 'ping'. This information is highly reliable, despite being of limited value. The radar data is the reverse - a military primary radar gives excellent and precise position data (that is what it was built to do), but how reliable is the identity of the source? There is a big difference between saying "An unidentified aircraft was in the right general area at the time and was tracked to the Andaman Sea" and saying "MH370 was tracked to the Andaman Sea".
Once we have all of the reliable data, with an understanding of the probability that it is relevant, then hypotheses can be tested against that data. Any hypothesis that conflicts with highly reliable facts must be discarded; whatever remains can be assessed on the basis of how well it fits the facts in evidence. As new facts come to light, we can trim the list of hypotheses; and as the list of possibilities grows smaller, more effort can be applied to disproving the remaining hypotheses, until either one hypothesis remains, or the plane is found.
The memory driven approach
Many people do not have the background knowledge and/or the inclination to take a scientific approach; and for these people, the answers to their questions come from experience, or history. It is noticeable when looking at comments from around the world, that Americans and Canadians are particularly drawn to the conclusion that the aircraft was stolen for use as a weapon. After all, the last time they heard about big passenger jets suddenly behaving in an abnormal manner was 9/11. This approach strikes me as being a good compromise between the unreasonable effort required to learn the details of every subject, and the desire to know what occurred. Indeed, in the context of frequent or routine events, it is a good approach to use. It falls down badly when assessing very rare events, because there simply isn't enough history to go on, and because things are not the same now as they were then. The classic example is the generals who are always ready to fight the last war all over again. The past is only a good guide to the future when the rate of change in the environment is slower than the frequency of the events in question; and for wars and commercial aircraft incidents, this is simply not the case.
Conclusion jumping
By 'Conclusion jumping', I mean the rapid adoption of an hypothesis for whatever reason, and the immediate transformation of that hypothesis into dogma. It can apply to the incident as a whole; or to specific pieces of evidence; but the key characteristic is an unwillingness to change one's mind, even in the face of overwhelming evidence. The 'Eyewitness reports' from the Maldives of an aircraft similar to the missing plane are a good example; despite repeatedly being informed that the timing of these sightings places them an hour after the aircraft would have run out of fuel, and more importantly that these reports were in conflict with the highly reliable INMARSAT data, many people persist in claiming that they must be significant. Likewise the reports of an oil rig worker seeing a burning aircraft over the South China Sea, when at the time of the report, the aircraft in question would have been below the horizon from the rig's position. Even once shown to be incompatible with far more reliable data, these reports continue to be quoted as though they were significant.
Conspiracy theorists
We are all familiar with conspiracy theorists, but in this context I am specifically referring to people who cannot accept that any event is unplanned. Accidents happen, all the time. But to the conspiracy theorist, there is no such thing as an accident - all events, particularly anything bad or unpleasant, must be due to deliberate agency. These are the people who insist that there must have been terrorists on board, or that the pilot or pilots must have been engaged in a deliberate plot to steal the plane.
Of course, some bad things are due to deliberate acts; but in the absence of a shred of hard evidence for malfeasance, assuming is existence violates parsimony. As my dad says, "Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence." In my opinion, we can add '... or misfortune' to that saying.
The echo chamber
The last, and perhaps worst, way to find out what happened is to listen to the media. They have a LOT of airtime to fill, and a tiny sprinkling of facts to discuss; and as a result they are the last place one should seek any real information. In the 21st century, we all have access via the internet, to most if not all of the primary sources used by the journalists, and those sources are far less prone to error than the news reports into which they are fed. A speculation by a supposed 'expert' who is an anonymous internet blogger, gets reported as a likelihood by a major newspaper's website, which is used as a source by a TV news show, which is picked up on by hundreds of poorly informed bloggers, who report it as hard fact, and the cycle continues. The vast majority of the news media has outlived its usefulness, and has survived by transforming itself into 'newsertainment', in which popularity with the audience is of far more importance than factual accuracy.
To me, the interesting thing about the above is not the tragic incident of the missing flight MH370 itself, so much as the illumination it casts on how people think - or how they fail to think. So many events and issues in the world, so many clearly false beliefs, stem from the misapplication of these techniques for obtaining information about the reality we occupy. In the last two weeks we have seen the birth of misinformation on a massive scale; the lies have flown around the world three times before the truth - which as of this posting is still unknown - could get its boots on.
No doubt, if the final fate of MH370 is ever known, some people will still cling to their preferred but disproven hypotheses, for the rest of their lives. I say 'if', because it is far from certain that the aircraft will ever be located; and even if it is, the 'black boxes' are unlikely to tell the whole story - particularly in the case of the CVR, which only records the last two hours of flightdeck sound. The DFDR may be more informative, but if it is found, much of what it tells will already be known from the location from which it was recovered.
People hate a mystery; and many in the modern world have come to expect 'closure' as though it was their right. But life is not a book or a movie, and there is no 'The End'.