Alzheimer's and Loss of Self – A Case of Bad Judgement

Alzheimer's? An organizational bad judgment case. In the last half dozen plus years I've come to know many persons greatly hurt because of judgments by self-anointed "Alzheimer's experts" made years ago. Seeking to increase funding for research they organized around a party line which framed a dread "disease" leading to "loss of self" thereby created a very hurtful stigma, hurting even their own cause. That was bad judgment.

Good judgment, for this old physicist, has a few clear basic pillars: Use the best evidence, with no logical fallacies and with clear understanding of all approximations. Use every reliable tool to anticipate consequences of a proposed course, where reliable tools are vetted by an appropriate expert body such as the National Academy of Sciences.

Teaching loss of self fails on all counts: There is no evidence. It is logically fallacious because there is no definition of self such that this self could be lost. It is mo more than an assumption, the most dangerous kind of approximation. The consequences of hurting persons, and hurting the cause of increasing funding, were not anticipated, but should have been, and could have been.

Objection: "I feel that I am losing my self" is often said by persons with memory challenges.
Answer one: They were taught to say this.
Answer two: This sentence is self-contradictory because the words "I feel that I am" are an affirmation of self.

Often good judgment can't be made with just those basic pillars. What are the options when these pillars do not point to a course sure to succeed? Defer judgment? Roll the dice? Look for a reasonable chance of success with course correction measures built in?

We now have evidence that decision making improves as diversity of council increases. So good judgment about which of those options to choose and about "reasonable chance of success" is best made by finding consensus in maximally diverse council.

Unfortunately this is usually contrary to organizations' traditions, even when working on science related issues. Gadflies are rarely tolerated on boards of directors, on science advisory groups, on staff. Lack of gadflies often leads to groupthink which can corrupt judgment.

Judgment can also be corrupted by faulty perception, when manipulated by appeal to emotion, when driven by selfish and perverse goals. Using reliable tools to anticipate consequences and finding consensus in maximally diverse council can minimize this corruption, or at least detect it.

What's the best way forward when parties do seek to drive judgments by appeal to emotions such as fear, pity, envy, hatred, pride, greed, ignorance, authority? Attempts to fight about differences arising here lead to zero-sum games with winners and losers and long term resentments which help appeals to emotions. Here we have a major consensus-finding challenge.

Consensus-finding requires understanding and honoring all parties even when their views are contrary to evidence, are based on logical fallacies, are driven by base motives. This is also usually contrary to traditions of organizations. Rarely are these traditions transcended.

Organizations should welcome and honor gadflies in order to avoid bad judgment. Should bad judgments – which could have been avoided – ever be excused by good intentions?
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