Dear Heidi, Don, and All,

Let me clarify one issue about the paper that Heidi recommended:

"P.S. In the spirit of recommending good reading, here is a paper about the impact of conceptual framing on problem solving: Lloyd S. Etheredge (1976). The Case of the Unreturned Cafeteria Trays. NY: America PoliticalScience Association."

http://www.policyscience.net/ws/case.pdf <http://www.policyscience.net/ws/case.pdf> 

This paper was not published as a satire and it wasn't published with comic intent. The paper was funded by a grant to the American Political Science Association from the National Science Foundation. Nothing in the paper suggests that it was intended to reflect on the issues in a satirical or humorous way.

“The preparation of The Case of the Unreturned Cafeteria Trays was supported by Grant GY 9351 from the National Science Foundation to the American Political Science Association for a project to improve undergraduate educatiQn in political science. Sheilah R. Koeppen, Director of the Division of Educational Affairs, is the project director. Responsibility to the profession for the project activities, 1972-1975, is exercised by this Steering Committee on Undergraduate Education: Vernon Van Dyke, Chairmdn, University of Iowa; Vincent J. Browne, Jr., Howard University; Gloria Carrig, Loop Collcgc, City Colleges of Chicago; Martin Diamond, Northern Illinois University; Heinz Eulau, Stanford University; Betty Nesvold, California State University, San Diego; Jack Peltason, Chancellor, University of Illinois; Ithiel de S. Pool, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; James A. Robinson, President, University of West Florida; Stanley Rothman, Smith College.

"This monograph has been commissioned by the Steering Committee on Undergraduate Education. It hd~ been reviewed by three qualified persons, including a member of the Steering Committee. The monograph is published under the auspices uf the Division of Educational Affairs. However, the views expressed arc those of the contributors and not of the Steering Committee of the American Political Science Association”

A few years back, I caught an article in a peer reviewed design journal filled with elementary mistakes about physics by a design scholar who made mistaken claims about Newton’s laws. I asked a physicist who had become a design student to explain these issues to the journal. He did. I was on the editorial board at the time, and the editor of the journal wrote me a grumpy note to say that the author had “deployed” the language of physics to satirical ends. That might have been a reasonable argument were it not for the fact that the author had made these exact same claims in several articles and conference papers, “deploying” the arguments to claim that he found fault with several aspects of research and several design research articles based on his misunderstanding of Newton’s laws.

While I can see why Heidi might have thought the author of The Case of the Unreturned Cafeteria Trays was joking, Lloyd Etheredge was serious. He received an NSF grant to fund this work, and he intended this as a serious contribution to the literature. This paper continues to move around in the literature of the social sciences as what Etheredge describes as a “range of plausible answers to these questions ... drawing systematically upon theories which social scientists use in thinking about behavior.”

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED138491.pdf

It seems to me mistaken to criticise anyone for taking seriously what that author himself presented as a serious way to reflect on social problems using what he represented as the methods of social and behavioural science. This presentation was funded by no less an agency than the National Science Foundation, with an imprimatur at the beginning of the study.

It is reasonable to note that Etheredge failed to do one thing that serious social and behavioural scientists do: ask questions of the people who engage in the behaviours they investigate. Theory alone does little without the empirical data to which theory ought to be applied.

Yours,  

Ken

Ken Friedman, Ph.D., D.Sc. (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Tongji University in Cooperation with Elsevier | URL: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/

Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| Eminent Scholar | College of Design, Art, Architecture, and Planning | University of Cincinnati ||| Email  [log in to unmask] | Academia https://tongji.academia.edu/KenFriedman | D&I http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn 





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