[Stoves] Leading questions mislead (Re: Ronal Larson)
Paul Anderson
psanders at ilstu.edu
Tue Aug 30 14:53:10 CDT 2016
Nikhil wrote:
> I have already said I know nothing about TLUD or for that matter
> design of biomass stoves.
and his suggested question:
> 3. Do you [the stove user] like to cut your wood in fine pieces?
Now THAT is a leading question!!!!
The issue of small pieces of fuel is NOT about the preparation of small
pieces by the stove user (because some fuels are already that size and
because fuel preparation can be a useful livelihood for some people who
solve the fuel preparation challenges, such as by refinery operators
making LPG and companies that produce pellets).
Instead, the issue of small pieces of fuel relates very much to their
very good functioning in some stoves (TLUDs) about which the stove users
might have no knowledge (and that includes Nikhil).
So, when something is new or unknown to someone, do not expect that
person to intuitively independently understand what is new. Therefore,
we "instruct" and "market" and "lead" and "demonstrate" etc to spread
knowledge, with the hope that the unknowing person might understand and
at least consider and maybe even adopt what is new.
I have great faith that when Nikhil does understand TLUD stoves that he
could become an advocate. We know a lot of people (including some stove
designers) who have greatly increased their interest in TLUD stoves in
the past few years, after many years of denial or even strong resistance.
And many of them still do not appreciate the char-making attributes of
TLUD stoves.
There is much instruction and marketing yet to be done about so many
topics and to so many people.
Not all leading questions mislead.
Paul
Doc / Dr TLUD / Prof. Paul S. Anderson, PhD
Email: psanders at ilstu.edu
Skype: paultlud Phone: +1-309-452-7072
Website: www.drtlud.com
On 8/30/2016 9:10 AM, Nikhil Desai wrote:
> Moderator: I changed the subject line.
>
> Ron:
>
> Thank you for indulging me. I wonder if I thoroughly lost you with my
> blabber on "leading questions". I learnt the term in drafting legal
> testimonies, but the issue is also relevant to survey design. See
> http://survey.cvent.com/blog/market-research-design-tips-2/survey-design-pitfalls-leading-questions-and-loaded-words.
>
>
> The real question is, who is the survey for and what are you trying to
> sell?
>
> Seeking convenient answers is a human weakness; pollsters do it all
> the time. No sin, just possibly an error.
>
> Product design and testing, marketing, selling, providing after-sales
> service and taking care of both legal and illegal risks, is a serious
> business. Even some parts of academia deal with it.
>
> But it seems we have an overabundance of scientism - unwarranted
> beliefs in unscientific assertions just because they are uttered by
> bureaucratic scientists (I trust ExxonMobil scientists more than USEPA
> scientists, but you probably know that already) - and
> under-enthusiastic customer base. This is ok, even normal, but not
> when 50 years of selling to donor bureaucrats has produced repeated
> failures,
>
> Oh, well. We sell best what we are good at - promises - to our eager
> customer base - ideologues of environmentalism. From saving trees to
> lives to climate, we latch on to the fad of the decade. (I have done
> that too, so please don't take this personally.)
>
> Today we seek to satisfy the priests of USEPA/GACC cult via catechism
> of Protocols of Water Boiling Tests in Laboratories. Tomorrow we could
> write a White Paper on Biomass Stoves and Planetary Health. (You see,
> Lancet would publish anything, so long as enough heads nod. Look up
> its reports of Commission on Climate Change or Commission on Planetary
> Health.) Why, in five years you and I could prepare a Progress Report
> on Biomass Stoves' Contribution to Sustainable Development Goals of
> 2035. With enough money, I could even write a paper that developing
> countries' transition to cooking with electricity from modern
> coal-fired plants (with USEPA-approved BACTs) reduces the chance of
> sea level rise by 22 cm in 2200.
>
> I wish I led a cult too. I wouldn't hesitate a bit in writing, "TLUD
> stoves save trees, grow bigger gardens, reduce global warming, and
> make cooks happier and richer." I could cite customer surveys in
> support. Convenient facts always trounce inconvenient truths. Just
> need to ask the right leading questions; there are suckers eager to be
> misled.
>
> Just about as scientific as the Global Burden of Disease report - with
> assignation of a single cause of death to some 50+ million deaths a
> year, whether or not what doctors' certificates exist and what they
> say, then concocting allocation of premature mortality to diseases and
> risk factors - but we would need another Bill and Melinda, at least
> another Harvard.
>
> And certainly more scientific than the USEPA/GACC technique of
> predicting exposures, disease and death from lab tests of boiling
> water on the one hand and pretentious accuracy of "relative risk"
> predicted from, well, questionable surveys, dubious sampling,
> meta-analysis and all that academic jazz.
>
> But I digress. Back to TLUD.
>
> I have already said I know nothing about TLUD or for that matter
> design of biomass stoves. I wish any seller success so long as the
> buyer is a happier cook.
>
> And I don't mean cooks of fancy feasts of self-righteousness for the
> rich donors with rich theories.
>
> Who is your customer? What is your service standard? What is the
> objective? I raised those questions the very first post this time
> around, and I haven't heard a thing from anybody.
>
> Whose problem - and what problem - is sought to be solved, by whom and
> why?
>
> On that some other time. You asked me to revise your questions, not
> raise my questions.
>
> Let me state questions I would like to be asked as a buyer of any
> stove-fuel technology. I resent having to answer questions in order to
> make some donor and his research consultants happy, but I know we all
> have to serve our ladies and lords.
>
> And if you have to sell to governments like our Chaiwalla Prime
> Minister - whose picture is on nearly every petrol pump in India, on
> huge billboards announcing his LPG scheme for empowering women - you
> may have to ask different kinds of questions. If I were his finance
> minister, I might ask you, "How many votes can you swing in five years?"
>
> Oh, sorry. Not my questions again. Your questions, assuming you want
> to sell something to a cook, with enough money to be able to buy some
> food items and fuel for a month at a time (not get them every day or
> three times a week), and has enough time for cooking (and not worry
> about another job outside home or any household chores or time to read
> to a child or watch TV at a neighbor's).
>
> 1. How much does charcoal sell for around here? How would you sell it
> if you sold it?
>
> 2. Do you want to leave a stove unattended for an hour? What times and
> how often?
>
> 3. Do you like to cut your wood in fine pieces? Or would you buy your
> fuel at 10 USc a kilo?
>
> 4. When it gets warmer around here, what do you do - get out of the
> kitchen?
>
> 5. What does your garden fetch you? How do you fertilize it? How much
> is it worth to you if your cooking produced just the fertilizer you
> want (because I say so)?
>
> I too wrote in favor of cooking solutions for the poor in terms of
> co-benefits of GHG reduction and health in order to please donors and
> their research consultants. I will readily do so again if I got a half
> million dollars to help move a few billion dollars to the poor to help
> them buy fuels and stoves of their choice. I have no problem
> beseeching the donors, misleading USEPA bureaucrats; after all, they
> only have their careers to worry about, and "happier cooks" are only
> an incidental co-benefit.
>
> Who knows, if we liberated tomorrow's mothers from the drudgery of
> cooking and instead invest in their and their children's education, we
> might have some more environmental regulators. Win, win, win!
>
> Nikhil
>
>
> Nikhil Desai
> +91 909 995 2080
> Skype: nikhildesai888
>
> On Aug 30, 2016, at 12:16 AM, "Ronal W. Larson"
> <rongretlarson at comcast.net <mailto:rongretlarson at comcast.net>> wrote:
>
>> Nikhil:
>>
>> I made six positive claimed points about TLUDs. How about your
>> rephrasing each to help (or restrain) we who are trying to sell a
>> (claimed) improved stove?Same request to Cecil.
>>
>> Ron
>>
>>
>>> On Aug 29, 2016, at 10:01 PM, Nikhil Desai <pienergy2008 at gmail.com
>>> <mailto:pienergy2008 at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Ron:
>>>
>>> I know nothing @TLUD, but I won't think much of answers to these
>>> questions one way or another.
>>>
>>> But I do consider these to be "leading questions" meant to elicit a
>>> biased answer.
>>>
>>> It is tragic to see people falling in the trap of believing
>>> themselves by getting convenient confirmations by means of leading
>>> questions.
>>>
>>> Am I not correct? :-)
>>>
>>> Not that I want to be.
>>>
>>> I salute unshakeable faith as the method of 21st Century "science".
>>>
>>> Now ask me when I stopped lying.
>>>
>>> Anybody out to measure intelligence and desire knows neither. S/he
>>> is just one blind among many in the zoo trying to define an elephant.
>>>
>>> Please excuse my impudence. I have no desire - for a biomass stove -
>>> nor intelligence.
>>>
>>> As always, wrong questions guarantee wrong answers.
>>>
>>> N
>>>
>>> Nikhil Desai
>>> +91 909 995 2080
>>> Skype: nikhildesai888
>>>
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