Testing to destruction.
“IIHS Hyundai Tucson crash test” by Brady Holt – Own work. Licensed under CC BY 3.0
A method used in manufacturing for product testing, where the product is
designed for a single action, and is used in practice as an insurance. The
best example is vehicle air bags. To see if they work a car is driven into
a wall, and the effect on the dummy people in the car is assessed.
Unfortunately some medical procedures can have a similar effect, of course
unintended. The classic case is amniocintesis, a procedure for assessing
the presence of Down’s Syndrome in the fetus. The reality was that the
probability of a fetus having the syndrome was way smaller than the
probability of the procedure itself causing a miscarriage. Initially, and
for quite a long time this was not realised. Eventually the test was only
offered to women who had a higher chance anyway of having a syndrome baby.
Could there be a connection between this stuff and the roll out of high
stakes testing in schools. Think about it.
Saving school math 