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2 - Bad Water

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2022

Anne McLaughlin
Affiliation:
North Carolina State University
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Summary

There are systems in place, or should be, for our government officials to make the decisions that affect our health. But as the Flint water crisis and our decision to go to war in Iraq in 2003 demonstrate, the rules for these systems are lacking. Officials and CIA Analysts fall prey to their unconscious biases just as readily as anyone. The Flint water crisis is described with all evidence in place that confirmation bias (and racial bias) drove the decision not to stop the public from drinking the water, using snippets from actual emails at the governor’s office to illustrate. The same failings led to war in Iraq, though the CIA has since created processes to prevent their analysts from making the same errors again. The chapter ends with a light-hearted example of a decision-making tool the CIA developed in the aftermath of the Iraq invasion: the Analysis of Competing Hypotheses. I use the tool to determine if my dog made a mess on the floor - a more everyday example of decision-making than airplane crashes, war, or public health (graphic to illustrate). This brings it home that bias can be avoided; it only takes effort.

Type
Chapter
Information
All Too Human
Understanding and Improving our Relationships with Technology
, pp. 17 - 28
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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  • Bad Water
  • Anne McLaughlin, North Carolina State University
  • Book: All Too Human
  • Online publication: 27 January 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009026093.004
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  • Bad Water
  • Anne McLaughlin, North Carolina State University
  • Book: All Too Human
  • Online publication: 27 January 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009026093.004
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Bad Water
  • Anne McLaughlin, North Carolina State University
  • Book: All Too Human
  • Online publication: 27 January 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009026093.004
Available formats
×