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December 10, 2004
A Question for you
I’m just going to ask a question that I hope you can help me with. This is part of my experience today. I would like to hear from those more experienced at writing scholarly papers. Last night I read a thesis that used some arguments to support ideas that I feel are not legitimate arguments, since they are not based on facts, but rather based on the absence of fact. An example of this is this:
“Since Mr. James did not hire any women in his company in leadership roles (a company of about 15 employees) it is apparent that he was against women holding these positions. Mr. James is a respected businessman in the community and his success has presented us with the model of how a successful business should be run. If women were meant for these roles then Mr. James would have known that and would have taken advantage of it.
Women were not meant for leadership roles. They are not capable of performing to the same level as men in this capacity. To be successful in business and minimize the risk of failure we should stick to models that have been proven to work. And Mr. James has set the standard for us.”
Can we really guess a person’s attitudes and motives because of something he did not do? In some cases we might be right by guessing, but lacking evidence is not evidence in itself. In the example I gave Mr. James might not have had any female applicants. Also, just because Mr. James was successful in business using men, does not mean that women would not also be successful in the same positions. There is no evidence supporting that, since we don’t know what a woman would do in those positions unless they actually do it.
My question is about this kind of supporting evidence. In this case because there is no evidence available to us we only have thiis lack of evidence from which to draw a conclusion. In my opinion missing evidence is not evidence at all. Isn't that kind of like the argument that "If man were intended to fly, he would have been born with wings?" Lack of wings doesn't necessarily mean human beings should not fly. I think arms that cannot support flight would be good evidence to support the idea that humans cannot fly using only their bodies like birds can.
What do you think?
Posted by carl1236 at December 10, 2004 11:59 PM | language
Comments
Why focus on the gender of the folks Mr James hires? Why not focus on the type of light bulbs he buys for the office, or the janitorial service he contracts to clean the toilets? Obviously, Mr James, who is successful, does everything perfectly in his business. Why do we assume the gender distribution in his management staff is the secret to his success?
Apparently this author is asserting that the apparent success of Mr James in his business means that everything Mr James does is the absolute best possible decision under the circumstances. This is a ludicrous premise since even successful people are bound to make mistakes or have errors in judgement. We'll never know if having women on the payroll would have helped Mr James to become even more successful. Since he doesn't have any, we can only speculate.
The person who wrote this thesis is a moron. If this is a paper about how to run a business, it is more likely to run a business into the ground. Progress is made only when the "models that have been proven to work" are ripped apart and restructured to keep up with changing trends and improved methods.
Posted by: Jim at December 11, 2004 12:42 AM