Validation or rather I told you so!

We humans need to be encouraged and to get some acknowledgement for ourselves and what we do. Youngsters need more of this, but as we get older the balance shifts and we obtain self-encouragement from external acknowledgement and appreciation. We all remember the people whose kind words had an impact in the family, at school, in the sporting arena and when starting out in a career. Once people are established in roles, we tend to forget to give them positive feedback. After all, they are just doing what is expected or what they are paid to do. However, even just a few words of genuine thanks and acknowledgement of an individual’s contribution can have a positive outcome.

From a personal perspective, I can remember times when I have received acknowledgement for a job well done and it has inspired me to greater effort. I can also recall times when my endeavours appeared to have gone unnoticed and the feelings that generated. I am now at an age where I no longer feel the need to seek encouragement or acknowledgement: I am more likely to need reminding! Even so, both are still welcome when given. Like many people, I am encouraged when what I have thought, said, written or done receives ratification by others.

So, you can imagine my joy when, immediately after submitting October’s article, the Review section of The Times newspaper on 14 September echoed three key messages I have tried to convey in my missives. Last month, I wrote about children’s authors, past and present, who were identified as being ‘in’ or ‘out’ for children today. I was sad that a number of authors that I have fond memories of reading as a youngster were on the ‘out’ list. As you probably can guess, Roald Dahl (after my era) is ‘out’ to the extent where some of his books have been rewritten. Lucy Bannerman wrote about Dahl’s racist views, interviewing Mark Rosenblatt about his play exploring the author’s anti-semitism. The sentiments I described on finding my childhood authors on the ‘out’ list were echoed by Lucy: “But I can’t be the only eighties kid who feels strongly protective of a man who lit up my childhood, who made me a reader...”
A quotation from Mark Rosenblatt sums it up: “People are complicated. We are all complicated.”

A common theme in my NDT News columns has been the importance of good communication. So, I was interested to learn from The Times that American plans for an invasion of Cuba in 1961 were estimated to have a 30% chance of success. The author of the President’s briefing document wrote that it had a ‘fair’ chance, meaning not too good. The President interpreted it differently and the rest is history. This story came from a review of the book The Art of Uncertainty: How to Navigate Chance, Ignorance, Risk and Luck by David Spiegelhalter. To Canadians, if something is ‘likely’ it has a 70-80% chance of happening, but to people in the UK only a 55-75% chance. In response to such differences in language around probability, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has published a document, titled: ‘Variants of Vague Verbiage’.

In ‘Information transfer: the sequel’^[1], I referred to a document produced by the AeroSpace and Defence Industries Association of Europe with the same objective of improving understanding of terminology. It was an international specification for the preparation of technical documentation in a controlled language, titled: ‘Simplified Technical English’. The ASD-STE100 specification is a set of rules and controlled vocabulary that makes technical texts unambiguous and easier to understand, especially for non-native English speakers.
I believe uncertainty is an underdiscussed topic within non-destructive testing (NDT)^[2].

Although I have yet to read the book described above, it will be of particular interest to people concerned with uncertainty in NDT. As the book reviewer wrote: “It is a passionate argument that we should make doubt a more formal part of our lives; put uncertainty in numbers and put uncertainty about uncertainty in numbers too.” We would do well to take heed.

References
1. B McGrath, ‘Information transfer: the sequel’,  2 October 2023. Available at: www.bindt.org/forums/on-the-job/information-transfer-the-sequel