RE: group based judgment

From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Thu Jul 25 2002 - 23:43:48 MDT


Harvey writes

> > "El Al's... success is mainly due to its tight on-site security.
> > Each passenger each time he or she flies is psychologically evaluated.
> > Carryon bags are checked multiple times. In essence, El Al's security system
> > works from the assumption that every passenger is a threat
>
> This is a perfect example of what the article was talking about...
> profession are saying. Profiling doesn't work. Every individual must
> be processed, each on their own merits.

and Rafal responded

### I only want to know why advanced testing should not be guided
### in part by statistical data, especially related to characteristics
### which are difficult to dissemble.

There was a response to this, but I didn't understand it. Hmm,
perhaps we can avoid being guilty of or accusing each other of
holding extreme positions. Possibly, we don't agree exactly
what we mean (or what is meant) by "profiling".

I believe that if our goal is to prevent airline hijackings, we all
agree that all bags should be searched. We also all agree that El Al's
methodology is the best any of us can think of.

Extreme Position #1 that I think no one holds: since by statistics
and common sense, some groups are extremely unlikely to engage in
terrorism (e.g. 80 year old ladies), people falling into some groups
should be above suspicion. This is *not* to claim that people holding
Extreme Position #1 would grant a free pass to anyone over whether
their baggage should be checked---even a little old lady's suitcase
might have been gotten to by a terrorist. It suffices to hold this
extreme position merely by advocating that some groups be deemed
"okay" and other groups "not okay". Everyone needs to make sure that
they don't accuse anyone of clinging to Extreme Position #1 (unless
I'm wrong and some one speaks up for it).

Extreme Position #2 that I guess no one would hold: some human
beings, either by virtue of innate disposition or extensive training
are capable of entirely suppressing the influence in their thinking
of obvious characteristics of a suspect (e.g. age and physical
condition). Not only can some humans do this, but they should all
do so, and their line of questioning of a 25 year old male from
Lebanon, for example, should be identical to that for the 80 year
old feeble grandmother from Texas, provided only that all the
answers to the questions are identical. (I was amused by the
ultra-precaution associated in the anecdote about the person from
Lebanon, Maine.)

Perhaps my "Extreme Position #2" isn't actually so extreme and
some here find it a good description of their views. I
would retort that the nature of intelligence---and I'm glad
that we all apparently agree on its irreplaceability---means
that *no* information is held completely irrelevant, and the
entire judgment or gestalt of the security officer is brought
to bear upon all the information present, consciously or
unconsciously. That's part of what it means for a human
to be exercising judgment.

Harvey continues

> It is best to use real information whenever possible. It is only
> when detailed information is not available that people are tempted
> to start profiling. Profiling means that you don't have specific
> information about a person, so you extrapolate it from the
> statistical averages for whatever group they are in. The very act of
> profiling is an admission that there is not enough information and one
> is trying to fill in the gaps.

What isn't clear here is what determines whether there is
"enough information", and exactly what that would mean. A
principle of Pan Critical Rationalism is that all knowledge
is conjectural; when applied to the particular case of an
airport security guard, this means that he or she can never
be certain that person X is not a terrorist. All he or she
can do is to lower the probability to a level corresponding
to standards conforming to his or her training, and to the
standards of the organization. Intelligence, of course, is
still key, and by necessity some guards will perform better
than others. It is not possible at present to mechanize
their judgment, nor to provide one hundred percent effective
criteria he or she could memorize.

If you have correctly characterized "profiling" above (which
I doubt), then I don't understand the accompanying criticism.
Isn't one *always* "trying to fill gaps" in one's understanding,
as it were?

Lee



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:15:40 MST