Analysis of Flawed Research
The following article analysis review by Team B illustrates and identifies several examples of statistics abuse in the practical world as a result of flawed research. The following examples demonstrate how a manger could and in many examples, does make erroneous decisions due to inaccurate statistics. The team has compiled the results by detailing the respective articles.
In the article, Pentagon Decision Making: seriously flawed, Karen Kwiatkowski witnessed first hand how erroneous and inaccurate information inside the Office of the Secretary of Defense, affected the United States decision to go to war with Iraq. This business decision not only affected the Bush Administration, but also affected the entire country. The article suggests that certain parts of this information made its way into speeches given by President Bush in order to mislead America and gain support for the war in Iraq.
The following themes are identified in the article, (Kwiatkowski, 2003):
1. Functional isolation of the professional corps. Civil service and active-duty military professionals assigned to the USDP/NESA and SP were noticeably uninvolved in key areas of interest to Under Secretary for Policy Douglas Feith, Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and Rumsfeld. These included Israel, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia.
2. Cross-agency cliques: Much has been written about the role of the founding members of the Project for a New American Century, the Center for Security Policy, and the American Enterprise Institute and their new positions in the Bush administration. Certainly, appointees sharing particular viewpoints are expected to congregate, and that an overwhelming number of these appointees have such organizational ties is neither conspiratorial nor unusual. What is unusual is the way this network operates solely with its membership across the various agencies - in particular the State Department, the National Security Council, and the Office of the Vice President.
3. Groupthink. Defined as "reasoning or decision-making by a group, often characterized by uncritical acceptance or conformity to prevailing points of view," groupthink was the predominant characteristic of Pentagon Middle East policy development. The result of groupthink is the elevation of opinion into a kind of accepted "fact," and uncritical acceptance of extremely narrow and isolated points of view.
This article demonstrates how decisions were made based on intuition rather than credible data. The end result was data that was deceptive. It was suggested that the CIA told employees not to work with other security departments; the primary Iraq staff work was done by political appointees that never communicated with the Bush organization and that the groupthink process lead to deceitful information fed to Congress.
The “pentagon papers”, officially titled: Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force, was a U.S. government study commissioned, by Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara, in 1967. [Robert McNamara served under both John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson.] The study traced the United States involvement in Vietnam from World War II to the present. The papers were highly confidential and compiled by many sources. Groups, such as the military, universities, and private organizations, worked on portions of the study. The joint efforts created a 47-volume study; only 38 of the 47 volumes were physically produced. One of the groups which had worked on the study was RAND Corporation. An employee of Rand Corporation, Daniel Ellsberg, used his clearance to gain access to a printed copy of the Pentagon Papers. Ellsberg then began secretly removing and copying volumes o...
Are you a self-reliant individual, or do you generate more ideas while working in a group? Groupthink has always been the dysfunctional idea that results from within a group that seeks harmony and conformity. Groupthink has been seen in Salem, MA, specifically in The Crucible, where townsfolk would go around accusing women, often innocent, of witchcraft. It has also been seen during the Red Scare, where Senator McCarthy would create a list of celebrities and other well-known people that he would accuse of being communists in the United States. At the time, Americans were against the idea of the communists and communism due to the fact that the Soviet Union, which had a communist government, was threatening to bomb the US. Thus, anyone who was
Prados, John. Safe for Democracy The Secret Wars of the CIA. Chicago, IL: Ivan R Dee, Publisher, 2006.
“President Bush has stated that about a hundred detainees were held under the Central Intelligence Agency secret detention program, about a third of whom were questioned using “enhanced interrogation techniques. The CIA has a way of very publicly blowing their cover seeming to pop up wherever turmoil, and political problems arise. The CIA exists to prevent threats, its operations involve covert actions or spying through various means to gather critical intelligence data. The CIA dates back to 1947. The qualifications and skills are above average. The job of the CIA is to anticipate and quickly assess rapidly evolving international developments and their impact, both positive and negative, on US policy concerns. When researching the career of
H. R. McMaster was a West Point graduate and attended the University of North Carolina. He was also a Gulf War veteran who commanded an armored cavalry. His desire in writing this book was to examine, through the recently declassified documents, manuscript collections, and the Joint Chief of Staff official histories, where the responsibility for the Vietnam foreign policy disaster lay, but also examine the decisions made that involved the United States in a war they could not win.
Weiner, Tim. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. New York: Doubleday, 2007. Print.
Everyday citizens often live unaware of their government’s inner workings. The knowing of political espionage is often too heavy of a subject to be inducted in conversation. True, prima facie, modest twists and turns of information may not be considered substantial, but this inconsideration leaves much to be uncontrolled. It is easy for political leaders to become power crazed, to not realize the massive implications that come of their actions. Only after all is said and done do the people actually realize their government is an opaque mask of deception. The Watergate Scandal substantially impacted Americans’ trust in their government.
Joel Best’s Damned Lies and Statistics is a book all about recognizing statistics that are legitimate and others that are really quite horrible. The goal of this book is not that the average every day person be able to read a statistical table from a scholarly journal, but rather that anyone could personally value a statistic he or she may come across in a newspaper article or on a news program. Best was essentially effective in achieving his goal; however, he was effective to the point of overdoing his job of showing that there are bad statistics which give readers cause to evaluate them outside of hearing them on the news.
Janis, I. L. (1972). Victims of Groupthink: a Psychological Study of Foreign-Policy Decisions and Fiascoes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0-395-14002-1.
... Sept. 11th, 2001, terrorist attack on theWorld Trade Center and the unreliability of U.S. intelligence onWeapons of mass Destruction in Iraq have been a focus of intense scrutiny in the U.S. in 2004 particularly in the context of the 9/11 Commision , the continuing armed resistance against U.S. occupation of Iraq, and the widely perceived need for systematic review of the respective roles of the CIA, FBI and the Defense Intelligence Agency. On July 9th, 2004 the Senate report of Pre-war Intelligenceon Iraq of the Senate Intelligence Committe stated that the CIA described the danger presented by Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq in an unreasonable way, largely unsupported by the available intelligence. In a briefing held Sept 15th, 2001 George Tenet presented the Worldwide Attack Matrix, a "top-secret" document describing covert CIA anti-terror operations in 80 countries in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. The actions, underway or being recommended, would range from "routine propaganda to lethal covert action in preparation for military attacks". The plans, if carried out, "would give the CIA the broadest and most lethal authority in its history".
Although the scientific use of anthropometrics in not abused in modern day society, scientists still incorrectly draw conclusions from data and statistics. Many statically fallacies occur where scientists will try and bend the statistics to prove their own personal opinion. For example, a scientist may deem his new invention or product to be 100% successful, but it could have only been tested 5 times. Even though the abuse of anthropometrics has been abandoned, scientific data abuse is still apparent in modern day
Since, as he establishes, leadership’s political priorities were critical to the ultimate decision in the CIA’s actions, the degree to which the CIA actually concentrated on this mission of collection and analysis depended on the perceived threats from the top. Consequently, the actual level of reliable analysis deteriorated as demonstrated by the example of ORE analysists who were “normatively risk averse” and trying to “get it right,” and provide analysis that fit into the view of their leadership. Lacking trust in their analysists’ conclusions, the CIA proved unable to supply reliable intelligence and forge “collaboration and integration.” Rather than addressing institutional problems the CIA developed a pattern that continued throughout its entire history. Even though it refers to the Reagan era, Immerman’s conclusion that in a time of crisis the CIA deemed that they “required a change in leadership more than an institutional adjustment,” could easily apply to any other period. This application of psychology to history while enlightening does detract from the reader’s understanding of a formation of a CIA “culture” that limited its intelligence analysis efficiency. Without this fundamental comprehension of a CIA “culture,” some of Immerman’s later
What is groupthink? There is a simple definition for it, but is it truly that simple? The term groupthink refers to the inclination of group members to have the same opinions and beliefs; it frequently leads to mistakes. It often occurs without an individual being aware of it. Conflict is considered to be a harmful element when related to groups, but conflict is good when considering groupthink because it helps to eliminate the existence of a groupthink. The explanation sounds simple enough, but it is more complex than the description given.
...en Goldachre. (2011). The statistical error that just keeps on coming. Available: http://www.guardian.co.uk/. Last accessed 10/12/2011.
...rue and lie. It depends on how it is used, collected and analyzed. Therefore, readers should understand what reliable statistics are. Yet, statistics are very important for researchers, scientists, students, employers and individuals to make decisions as well as to evidence any claims or scientific theories.