Conclusion !

Warren Buffet has said, "This world is full of people who do not need a reason to believe. They just need an excuse to believe".

A cat once jumped to sit upon a gas burner which was just put out seconds ago and still red hot despite no traces of flames. You can guess what would have happend with cat, but cat concluded something. "Never sit on gas burner". Could you have corrected the conclusion?

This topic is all about Conclusions, Inferences, opinion and judgements.
I will start with a practical example. Some time back I asked following question from a group.
Q: Can someone share the info about weather in and around Coorg coffee estates, during dec end in particular?

I got following seven answers.

1. It is very cold. Make sure you take a lot of warm clothes. Mornings are usually chilly. But by 9:00 am things turn out to be more like Bangalore. Visit Raja-Seat in Madikeri and Abbey falls. Apart from that there is not much to do.
If you are looking for a good relaxation place, I would highly recommend Gokarna Beaches in north Karnataka.

2. Dec is a nice time to go to Coorg. It will be hill station like weather.
3. During December end it is very cold J over there and sometimes it rains
If going with friends just you can chill out …
If going with family along with kids and elders it would be good to go prepared with warm clothes.
If newly married couple … they can enjoy ;)
4.Chill and little rainy. Two years ago, we could hardly get out off our rooms after 2-3pm.
5.Very pleasant. Open skies (no clouds). Temperature in the range of 10-25C. Go for it! My first and last visit was around the same time of the year.
6. The climate during November, December and January is really cool.
7. Should be good. For me, anything but lots of raining will be good in such occasion.

Can you risk to conclude anything?

The problem statement I want to state is the Skill of drawing Conclusion is rarely gifted but rampantly exercised by all and sundry leading to disastrous results.
Before I get into the gory details.

Let me take another example.

Some students were conducting an experiment upon a creature with 12 legs. They broke one pair of legs and ordered the creature - "walk". The creature started to crawl but rather slowly as compared when it had all the pairs of legs.
Students, broke another, and ordered the creature again to walk. This time also the creature started walking but rather slower than previous time.
When students broke the last pair of legs, and ordered the creature to walk, the poor guy could not move. Guess what was the conclusion drawn by the students.

"Once all the legs are broken, the Creature turns deaf ."


The logic says about the following terms.

Fact, Inference and Judgement. There are thousand other terms also but I am picking some useful ones.

Fact - Something which is largly undisputed and based upon the fundamentals. Like sun rises in the east. India's GDP is 1 trillion USD. Today is sunday, 2*2 = 4 etc.

Inference - An opinion/assertion based upon a set of facts. That means something which can be proved with the help of available facts. Like definition says if GDP growth is negetive for more than two consecutive quarters, then its and indication of Recession. If there are two queues with 10 and 20 people both and both counter takes equal time to process each individual request, the longer queue will take longer to be served etc.

As we can see here, even though Inferences are based upon the facts and can be proved, but here little bit of subjectivity is introduced. The primary drive here is a belief for/against something. Then one finds the relevant facts and tries to prove it and drives a conclusion. So inferences are not aloof to disputes as one proves what one wants to prove.

Lastly there is judgement. You start with the facts, you drive the inferences. Now what. You have to make an opinion out of them. Here maximum subjectivity/discretion and notion of disputability is introduced.

Lets start with an example.

Example -1

All high end cars (e.g in price band x-y) have better suspension, ride quality, safety, maintenance than the lower end cars. High end cars are good cars.

All high end cars have higher carbon footprint, less fuel efficiency, less manouverability around the congested streets, greater depreciation in resale values. High end cars are bad cars.

Example - 2

Last four years of government, GDP has grown from x-y, UNDP human index for India has improved from x-y, industry has grown from a-b, unemplyment has shrunk from b-c, y kms roads have been built, z mega watt more energy is produced, crime rate has come down from i-j etc. Hence this goverment has been good for India.

Last 4 years have seen an increase of x percent of terror attack, four consecutive quarters of highest inflation in a decade, x hundred thousand job losses in export oriented sectors, Industrial growth for more than three recent quarters have been less than 4, which is way less than the previous regime. Hence this government has been disasterous.

In both the examples, each statement has two parts. First part is Inferences, which refers to facts. All of the fact are quantifiable and can be measured and proved. But you see amazing contrast in the conclusions which is mentioned in the second parts in red.

Normally when I see folks around debating like ----, I get amused. An unending debate is replete with countless references to facts and inferences based thereupon. But still the judgements are north pole south pole. And I bet they will remain as is it. I remember someone has said once, "If two parties fight for a long time, chances are that they both are wrong".

Fundamentally it is the belief system what drives the process of arguments. This belief systems is based upon one's entire life's learnings in any form. This belief system consists of countless biases as well. When we believe into something and we need to present a case, we rummage the supporting arguments and blatantly overlook the contradicting ones. Its just like an attorney prepares his/her case. But we know in a fight at least one of the two attorneys is wrong.

The process of drawing conclusion gets murkier, when we start baselining the conclusion upon earlier conclusions and so on. Now you see the references to non-quantifiable and unmeasurable things. Most of the never ending debats are just like that.

Basically we spend lifetime in just carrying around with certain baises and fighting for these. I remember some has said. Noone damages the cause more than one who defends the cause with wrong arguments.


Lately I saw its example in Time's coverage on Kashmir issue.
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1864880,00.html
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1864207,00.html
Someone sitting in cosy plush interiors of Manhattan studio, dreams about a story of connecting Bombay blasts with Kashmir. To prove the claim he/she goes even to an extent of quoting the excerpts of a specific Indian news channel . Surprisingly, the particular channel does not enjoy the viewership of more than 0.001% of India and mostly known for soft porn and sleeze mixed cheap titilating coverages. But any channel becomes quotable as long as it's nursing original biases thus can be quoted. But the story will be liked by those readers who already nurture the similar biases as carried by author, thus will remain unquestioned.

I remember while reading the biography of Lee Iococca. At one point he says when you chair the company's leadership meeting and have Harvard graduates painting a particular picture. You will have plethora of analysis done, tons of numbers quoted and countless reports sought as supporting arguments. But one thing which nobody will tell and everybody else looks upon you for, is the tough question "What should be the final decision?".

All this means is, concluding is not as simple as everybody thinks it is. Please shed tons of biases before taking the plunge and being objective about this process despite being a sujbect youself.

Well that is the conclusion I am drawing at the end of this blog and leaving with this quotation.

Do not belive something untill officially denied.