[haltingproblem]

Sigh. The mythmaking contines. In the theory of causation, we distinguish between proximate vs. ultimate causality. Every proximate event can plausibly be claimed to be the cause for a subsequent event. As they say for want of a nail the war was lost. We don't say the war was lost because the nail was missing because 20 years ago they changed the way they cataloged the nails in the hardware store which sold the nails because the owner of the store changed their inventory system.

What is plausibly the cause for the engineering fiasco of the 737 Max? Why go back to the merger in 1997 and why not blame the 9/11 attacks or the election of G.W Bush or Obama's for this disaster?

Why go back to the 1997 merger with McDonnell Douglas? Because it allows Boeing engineers to deflect blame for the terrible product they built and foisted on the flying public by coasting on their past reputations.

[1123581321]

This is uninteresting as the engineers are only making a limited point that the superior character of the engineering organization has been lost, relative to the demands of buyers and the FAA. It’s not a novel theory to suggest a merger or acquisition can cause this to happen more obviously than a national or world event.

[haltingproblem]

The theory is just that - a theory and a convenient one at that since it exonerates Boeing engineers.

The is no evidence supporting the theory (verification) and more interesting it is not falsifiable. It is just a narrative.

[1123581321]

It is falsifiable, given access to the record of management decisions and hiring data and some agreement on what a consequential company decision would look like.

Whether some people think it “exonerates” current engineers doesn’t matter. I don’t think it does, personally.

[tangjurine]

The evidence for the theory is that there are many Boeing 'apologists' as OP states - he is trying to debate them, not people that don't care if Boeing ever had a good engineering culture.

[pdonis]

> In the theory of causation, we distinguish between proximate vs. ultimate causality.

Yes, and you have them backwards. "The engineers failed to raise the issue" is a proximate cause, not an ultimate cause. If engineers in your company are failing to raise obvious technical issues, then either you're hiring incompetent engineers, or your corporate culture discourages engineers from speaking up and punishes those who do. Either way, the ultimate cause is a failure of the organization as a whole, which ultimately means its top management, not a failure of the engineers.

[haltingproblem]

How do I have them backwards? The theory attributes ultimate cause to something that is way way in the past. The event is chosen to maximize narrative plausibility. There is no way to verify the narrative or better falsify it.

The theory conveniently exonerates Boeing engineers without any supporting evidence, forget falsification.

[pdonis]

> The theory attributes ultimate cause to something that is way way in the past.

Yes, that's what "ultimate" cause means. Not necessarily way back in the past, but way back in the causal chain. Basically, you keep on asking "what caused that?" until you get to an answer that looks like a reasonable stopping point. Saying "the engineers failed" isn't a reasonable stopping point because the engineers weren't acting in isolation or on their own; they were acting as part of a larger organization that was not just an organization of engineers. So if they failed, it means the larger organization failed, and you have to look at why that happened to find the ultimate cause.

> The theory conveniently exonerates Boeing engineers

It does no such thing. It is perfectly possible for the engineers to be at fault and for the larger organization of the Boeing corporation to also be at fault. The reason for looking beyond the engineers is not to "exonerate" the engineers, but to make sure that "blame the engineers" does not get used as an excuse to exonerate others who also contributed to the failure and who should be held accountable.