I have been fascinated by the story of Abraham Wald, for a long time. The grandson of a rabbi and the son of baker, he was a gifted mathematician. The Statistical Research Group was a classified program that got a group of American statisticians to collaborate on the World War Two war effort. Although he was an “enemy alien” given his background, he found himself at the SRG. The allied planes were a big part of the war effort. The scientists were evaluating how to armor the planes as a lot of them were getting shot down. You want to armor the planes optimally so as to not make the plane too unwieldy to fly, as the armor is heavy. When the planes came back they were riddled with bullet holes but the damage was not uniform. The fuselage had 1.73 bullet holes per square foot, fuel system had 1.55 and the engine had 1.11 bullet holes per square foot. The obvious conclusion was that the fuselage and the fuel system needed to be armored. Abraham Wald came to a totally different conclusion. He felt that the fuselage and the fuel system did not need any armor but the engine , which statistically had received the least number of bullet holes, should get the armor. What was his logic? The reason that the planes were coming back with fewer hits to the engine is that the planes that got hit in the engine, were not coming back. The fuselage bullet holes were okay to be tolerated as they were not fatal. Ask any ER physician and they will tell you that they see a lot more of gunshots in the legs, rather than the head. The number may not be different but the latter do not survive and a lesser number show up in the ER. Wald’s wise conclusions were put into effect and are used by the Air Force even today.
If we act upon what we see or hear, it may be a miscue. The truth requires not only the senses but feeling, meaning and pondering and the truth may emerge. Every beggar at the the traffic intersection is not a drug addict. Every person in a jail is not guilty. Every priest is not a holy man. Every light in the night sky, is not a star. Every perceived road block in life is not a road block, but on the contrary may be a tailwind. We miscue a lot of our actions everyday, which is what makes us human as long as we recognize our miscue’s. Watching out for our own miscue’s constantly will make us more alive rather than just live. They have the power to turn you into something better than you were before……