Category Archives: Error

Degrees

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apolloNORMALLY, WITH NO phone or e-mail interruptions, I look forward to redeeming the time on a plane by writing, reading, or doing correspondence…
But after the battery on my computer ran out, and sitting next to someone for what seemed like forever, I finally struck up a conversation with my next-door neighbor. He was an engineer from the Houston area.
“Petroleum engineer?” I asked.
“No, I work for NASA,” he admitted.
And of course, for the next hour I’m sure that’s something he wished he hadn’t confessed. Like most people my age who grew up watching the build-up of manned space flight to Neil Armstrong leaving his footprints on the moon, I was an astronaut “wannabe” as a kid.
Here at last was my chance to talk to a genuine missle scientist and ask all my questions about space flight! He was patient and shared some incredible behind-the-scenes stories, including his role in the last Apollo space flight. But at one point I hit a nerve when I brought up what I thought was a simple “margin of error” question.
“What are the tolerances you build into the tragectory when you blast off and head to the moon?” I asked him. “For example, after you blast off, could you be just a little off, say like a couple of degrees off on your flight path, without it being such a huge problem?”
Out came his briefcase and his hybrid handheld calculator that would make a Texas Instruments T3000 blush and feel like a slide rule. In wnet the “very approximate” distance of 217,614 miles from earth to the moon (depending on the time of year and apoge of the moon’s orbit around the earth, of course). Fingers flew furiously for a few moments as some Einsteinian calculation continued.
“Be just two degrees off from when you blast off, and roughly talking into account the time and distance traveled,” he said as he turned his calculator toward me, “and you’ll miss not only your point of orbital entry, but you’ll miss the moon by a measly 11,121 miles.”
I wrote down that number on a torn off page of a USA Today that served as an impromptu notepad. “11,121.” I finally left my new NASA friend in peace, but I’ve never forgotten his conclusion or what it can tell us about the most important relationships and areas of our lives.
Add in enough time and distance, and be just two degrees off and you’ll miss your target by miles. I think that thought impacted me so much because it seemed to answer why and how the church of Ephesus had lost her first love. Just be two degrees off from a right heart attitude, add in enough time and distance, and an entire church can end up miles from God’s heart. John Trent, “How a 2 Degree Change Can Ruin or Renew Your Life,” HeartShift, 16-17
KneEmail: “Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lampstand from its place–unless you repent.” Revelation 2.4-5
Bible reading for 06.13.11: John 21; Ezra 6-8
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Judge

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gavel.jpg
STEPHEN COVEY TELLS of an experience he had one Sunday morning while riding a subway in New York…
People were sitting quietly–some reading their newspapers, some lost in thought, some resting with their eyes closed. It was a calm, peaceful scene. Then suddenly, a man and his children entered the subway car. Then suddenly, a man and his children entered the subway car. The children were so loud and rambunctious that instantly the whole climate changed.
The man sat down next to me and closed his eyes, apparently oblivious to the situation. The children were yelling back and forth, throwing things, even grabbing people’s papers. It was very disturbing. And yet, the man sitting next to me did NOTHING.
It was difficult not to feel irritated. I could not believe that he could be so insensitive as to let his children run wild like that and do nothing about it, taking no responsibility at all. It was easy to see that everyone else on the subway felt irritated, too. So finally, with what I felt was unusual patience and restraint, I turned to him and said, “Sir, your children are really disturbing a lot of people. I wonder if you couldn’t control them a little more?”
The man lifted his gaze as if to come to a consciousness of the situation for the first time and said softly, “Oh, you’re right. I guess I should do something about it. We just came from the hospital where their mother died about an hour ago. I don’t know what to think, and I guess they don’t know how to handle it either.”
Suddenly, I saw things differently, and because I saw differently, I thought differently, I thought differently, I felt differently, I behaved differently. My irritation vanished. I didn’t have to worry about controlling my attitude or my behavior; my heart was filled with the man’s pain. Feelings of sympathy and compassion flowed freely… Everything changed in an instant.
THOUGHT: Has this ever happened to you? It’s easy to make a snap judgment without knowing all of the facts. You can’t always tells what’s going on inside a person or know why of what they’re doing unless you ask. Listen with your eyes as well as your ears and refrain from thinking the worst. H. Norman Wright, “Love Gives the Benefit of the Doubt,” Before You Say “I Do” Devotional, 19-20
KneEmail: “He who answers a matter before he hears it,It is folly and shame to him.” Proverbs 18.13
Bible reading for 04.12.11: Luke 11.29-54; 1 Samuel 19-21
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Consensus

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ARTHUR SCHPENHAUER IS credited with the insight, “All truth passes through three stages…
First, it is ridiculed.
Second, it is violently opposed.
Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.”
Perhaps an appropriate addendum would be, The fight against truth often involves the tyranny of consensus.
Within a large amphitheater style auditorium, silence recently reigned as riveted attention focused upon the scientists sitting at a series of tables on the stage. Each held a doctorate. Each were leaders on the controversial topic being discussed.
The opening statements from both sides of the discussion seemed reasonable enough, even convincing. Suddenly the nature of the evidence being presented shifted dramatically. As counter-evidence was presented, one side retreated to appealing to consensus with statements along the lines of, “Among those at research universities, I do not know of anyone holding that position.” The pattern continued as the spotlight shown brightly on additional data. One side asserted that if the scientists working in that field were to fill the auditorium, the opposing idea would be rejected.
At times, consensus simply provides an historically curious snapshot of a social barometer. Arthur’s insights and my proposed addendum lead me to reflect upon another scenario.
Confronted with the evidence that the New Testament beckons people to rely upon Jesus for salvation by being immersed, I encounter two typical responses. Some merely reiterate, “salvation is by faith.” In this case, they reveal that they either fail to grasp the discussion is focused upon how people are being instructed to initially express faith in Jesus and not upon the role of faith, or they possess no evidence to submit.
Others however, irregardless of where the evidence actually points, remain unmoved as they verbally seek refuge and security in the consensus opinion of Protestantism. As a principle, agreeing with the consensus opinion is not necessarily misguided. Most people agree 2 + 2 = 4. Conversely, neither is the unpopular the plumb line. What matters is not the degree of popular acceptance, but where the evidence actually leads. Barry Newton at http://www.forthright.net/hands-on_faith/the_tyranny_of_opinion.html
KneEmail: “He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.” Mark 16:16; cf. Acts 8:35-38; 16:30-33
Bible reading for 11.17.10: Hebrews 12; Ezekiel 5-7
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Miss

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AirportSecurity2.jpg …WHAT IF YOUR job were to find a gun…?
Or a tumor? Both baggage screeners at airports and radiologists at hospitals spend the bulk of their time looking for things they rarely see. In the case of radiologists, routine mammograms reveal tumors only 0.3 percent of the time. In other words, 99.7 percent of the time, they won’t find what they’re looking for. Guns are even rarer. In 2004, according to the Transportation Security Administration, 650 million passengers traveled in the United States by air. But screeners found only 598 firearms. That’s roughly one gun for every million passengers — literally, one-in-a-million odds.
Both occupations, not surprisingly, have considerable error rates. Several studies suggest the “miss” rate for radiologists hovers in the 30 percent range. Depending on the type of cancer involved, though, the error rate can be much higher. In one especially frightning study, doctors at the Mayo Clinic went back and checked the previous “normal” chest X-rays of patients who subsequently developed lung cancer. What they found was horrifying: up to 90 percent of the tumors were visible in the previous X-rays. Not only that, the researchers noted, the cancers were visible “for months or even years.” The radiologists had simply missed them.
As for the nation’s fifty-thousand airport screeners, the federal government won’t reveal how often they make mistakes. But a test in 2002 indicated that they missed about one in four guns. During a similar test two years later at Newark’s airport, the failure rate was nearly identical: 25 percent. More recently, 60 percent of bomb materials and explosives hidden in carry-on items by undercover agents from the TSA were missed in 2006 by screeners at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. At Los Angeles International Airport, the results were even worse: screeners missed 75 percent of bomb materials.
And keep in mind, these are trained professionals dealing with life-or-death issues. Joseph T. Hallinan, “We Look but Don’t Always See,” Why We Make Mistakes, 23-24
THOUGHT: What happens when radiologists don’t find tumors and airport screeners don’t find weapons? People die. But what happens when Christians aren’t watching for, or don’t locate, false doctrines that are secretly smuggled into the local body of Christ? Give it some thought.
KneEmail: “And this occurred because of false brethren secretly brought in (who came in by stealth to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage).” Galatians 2:4; cf. Matthew 7:15-20
Bible reading for 08.24.10: 1 Corinthians 7:1-19; Psalm 116-118
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