[Stoves] Advocacy action: ask the GACC to stop promoting the WBT

[Xavier Brandao]

Dear Frank,
/
"Agree - if they are relevant."
/Of course, the questions need to be relevant. Let's discuss then the 
relevance of these questions. I know first that the question raised by 
Fabio Riva, Francesco Lombardi and their colleagues, and that they have, 
fortunately for us, started to answer, is very relevant.

Dear Ron,

What you are doing is using an appeal to authority, also called 
"argument from prestige":
http://philosophy.lander.edu/logic/authority.html

"This person has a great CV, so probably he/she is right". Appeal to 
authority is something I don't like, because I think everyone's opinion 
matter, as long as they bring a reasonable argumentation. Everyone's 
voice counts the same, regardless of the nice CV. Of course, we will 
probably trust more the opinion of a doctor in psychology than the one 
of a carpenter on psychology questions, and vice-versa. But this is not 
the situation here.

And you might not want to go down this road, because if you start to 
have a look at Crispin's CV, or Harold Annegarn's, or Philip Lloyd's, 
with his degrees in chemical engineering and nuclear physics, you might 
become very interested in the work they did on protocols. They did a lot 
of work, in their field of expertise.

"there are a few in this dialog who _would_ completely throw five years 
of hard work by many out the window., with no intention to ever return."
What you talk about is sunk cost:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost

This is very important, because I got this argument already from WBT 
supporters, and I am sure it was one of the main arguments in the 
discussions at ETHOS. Sunk cost is a very common bias in 
decision-making. It is a shame if 5 years of hard work are lost, but 
they are already lost. If it is a dead end, it is a dead end, no matter 
how many you bang your head on the wall.
What we try to prevent now is other years of wasted efforts. Stop the 
bleeding.
Excuse my French, but I'll use a not very elegant but powerful image to 
illustrate that: if you have been piling shit for 5 years, you might be 
frustrated to get rid of all that shit, because even if it is shit, it 
took a long time to make a pile that high. But even if you keep piling 
layers and layers of shit on top, it will never turn into a pile of gold.
By the way, do you know how much money was spent improving the WBT?

The sunk cost concept is to start doing the right thing _now_. It is 
never too late to do the right thing.

Along those lines, I would like to ask you other questions:

  * How many years of efforts were lost, because of the uncertainty of
    results obtained from the WBT testing?
  * How much money and efforts did stove companies, project leaders
    wasted, because their stove went from one testing center to another,
    with conflicting results?
  * How hindered were they in their mission, which is to solve poverty
    and save lives? Talking about social impact.

I let you ponder on that.

So in fact I'll try to be true, maybe yes, maybe I want to "kill" the 
WBT. If it is not fixable, and as I say I doubt it is, and if it does 
more harm then good, then yes, it should be "killed".
But now I am just asking to put it aside.

"It seems the WBT is not able to inform us on performance.*[RWL2: 
  Please explain further."*

The 10 studies and Crispin explain it well: we are not sure the WBT test 
tells us how the stove performs.


/*"a)  affordability (the second item in Dr. Chiang’s list)?  Do you 
really wish this in an ISO test?"*/
Not really no, affordability is relative, it should be left to project 
leaders, companies, and the end customers to decide what is an 
affordable stove. I don't believe there are standards for affordability. 
I am not sure I understood your first remark, but what I understood is 
that you said: "Dr. Chiang is committed to affordable stoves, so her 
work on the WBT, and the WBT as it is now, reflect that". She certainly 
is, but so are business and project leaders like Vahid, Camilla, 
Mouhsine or Sujatha, and they certainly each have spent much more time 
working on these issues.

*"I see _NO_ other way to inform on performance."
*HTP and CSI, and a few other protocols.*

***"There is an ongoing (even today) WG3 discussion on field testing*"
*Field testing with the right protocols, sure, because it is contextual 
and provides a much more accurate picture.

"*Are you fundamentally opposed to any test placing stoves into 9 [more 
or less] tiers?*"
No. It is practical to have tiers, a bit like energy ratings for 
refrigerators or light bulbs.
I am opposed to that if it is scientifically invalid, like it seems to be.
**
*"And where are you on including charcoal output in the reporting of 
performance?"*

I have no strong opinion on that. Tami and Crispin present convincing 
arguments. I agree with you it should be reported, for sure, but in a 
scientifically correct way.

"*b) context?   This is the purview of WG3 - field testing."*

Sure, but it is not the purview of the WBT, that's one of the problems 
with it.*
*

"*shipping?   I doubt you can find any ISO test procedure that includes 
shipping as an issue."
*I am not talking about shipping, I am talking about developing a stove 
by using the WBT for months, and one day having this stove being used 
for real, by real local cooks, in a completely different geographical 
and cultural context. Surprise, surprise.**This is where you get the 
first interesting**results.Contextual testing, even when performed in a 
different location, limits the surprise.

*Don’t you agree that all the above are best left to the companies and 
individuals selling stoves, not those involved in lab (or field) testing?
*Ideally, but in reality the companies and individuals, to whom I will 
add the large international development and humanitarian organizations, 
are very short on time and staff, and under a lot of pressure. And they 
are not scientists (they've been told that well enough). And they don't 
have the equipment. So they delegate the testing to organizations they 
trust.**The organizations they**trust must provide them testing results 
that can give a fair (it is never perfect) idea of how their stove will 
perform for their context. The WBT does not allow that.

/*"3)  usability, and */
/*4)  access to a broad range of technology */
/*and fuel opportunities.”*/
//

*I contend, mostly from several stays at Aprovecho, that lab testing 
using the WBT, can give great insight on these as well."
*4 maybe, 3 certainly not.**This is probably the worst one.As users 
often say, while laughing, when we ask them to just boil water: "no one 
does that!". They think we are these kind of eccentric westerners.
Contextual testing is the only thing that can give insight on usability. 
Usability is one of the most if not the most important aspect when 
making a stove for a customer.

*RWL4:  Clearly the present protocol is limited to boiling/heating 
water.  Are you urging that every lab adds roti testing?  Don’t you 
think that stoves used in part for roti-making sometimes also heat water?
*I don't ask for a protocol for each dish, I ask for a contextual 
protocol flexible enough so you get valid results whatever the dish is.
The HTP and CSI do that.
**
Frank very well mentioned this idea of making progress, and I would also 
really like to highlight this important point.
The world is turning, the world is progressing. Other fields of activity 
evolve, their practices change, what they do one given year differ from 
what they did the previous year. This is called "progress".
It shouldn't be any different for the stove sector.

It is perfectly understandable that a testing protocol dating from, 
what, 1987?, becomes obsolete and stops being used.

Testing centers will remain testing centers, testers will remain 
testers, they will still be needed, they will just evolve.
As far as I know, no one is married to the WBT.

Note that I don't have interests in the HTP and CSI. These protocols can 
be used, or other ones that are better, it doesn't really matter to me. 
The only important thing is that we are able to test our stoves and 
understand how they perform, so we can improve them, and serve our 
customers.

Best,

Xavier
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