What Jack said. Furcas wasn’t saying, “The system is high-tech—how is it possible for falling bread to disable it?” which would be an instance of that fallacy. Rather, Furcas’s point was, “Hey, they have such an elaborate system—how could they have missed this failure mode?”
How did they miss the poor quality of the O-rings in the Challenger disaster? Hindsight bias must be taken into account, here. (And note that they were astonished that the piece of bread made it in, according to the quoted part of the article.)
(Edit: I do not mean to imply that SilasBarta specifically was falling victim to said bias, here.)
Yes, hindsight bias should be taken into account. But the cases differ in that you have to have detailed technical knowledge to understand why O-rings can fail and why that failure would matter.
In constrast, most people, even without any technical knowledge, already know to check how they need to protect expensive stuff from nature.
So, how many baguette pieces have you had to fish out of your recycling bin lately? Note that the article states the piece was found inside the building.
Not at all. There’s no rule that says that expensive or sophisticated technology must also be sturdy. These are separate questions.
The two questions are obviously logically distinct but if you spent 4 billion euros on a machine you’d think you’d put a tarp over it or something.
What Jack said. Furcas wasn’t saying, “The system is high-tech—how is it possible for falling bread to disable it?” which would be an instance of that fallacy. Rather, Furcas’s point was, “Hey, they have such an elaborate system—how could they have missed this failure mode?”
At least, that’s how I think most would read it.
How did they miss the poor quality of the O-rings in the Challenger disaster? Hindsight bias must be taken into account, here. (And note that they were astonished that the piece of bread made it in, according to the quoted part of the article.)
(Edit: I do not mean to imply that SilasBarta specifically was falling victim to said bias, here.)
Yes, hindsight bias should be taken into account. But the cases differ in that you have to have detailed technical knowledge to understand why O-rings can fail and why that failure would matter.
In constrast, most people, even without any technical knowledge, already know to check how they need to protect expensive stuff from nature.
So, how many baguette pieces have you had to fish out of your recycling bin lately? Note that the article states the piece was found inside the building.