QUESTION #1 : Will you allow Bob to continue working on the project? Why or why not? Give two reasons to support your answer.

SETUP: As we have seen throughout the course, many things get in the way of clear thinking: biases, fallacies, assumptions, unclear communication, etcetera. And even though we never set out to reason poorly, sometimes we just get things wrong. One thing we can do is create conditional rules for ourselves...rules that help guard against making poor judgments.

SETUP: Keith and Andrew are engineers at Mr. Pipes International. The company's pipeline carries crude oil from northern Alberta to refineries in Texas. Keith and Andrew's job is to conduct an internal review of the company's safety protocols. They quickly realize the company's protocols are insufficient to prevent an environmental mess if a pipeline ruptured. Keith and Andrew quickly come up with a new protocol which would all but eliminate the negative environmental effects of an oil spill. As with the old protocol, their proposed protocol still requires a coordinated response from an engineer in the control room and a field engineer.

Before submitting their proposal for final review, they decide to run a simulated rupture. Unfortunately they lose communication during their simulation due to a lightning storm. And then disaster strikes. The pipeline actually ruptures, and oil starts flowing into an environmentally sensitive area. In order to successfully stop the leak, they must coordinate their efforts. But they do not have any way to communicate. The question is, which protocol do they enact: the old one, or the new one?

If both Keith and Andrew follow the old protocol to stop the leak, they will end up with a mess. If both Keith and Andrew follow the new protocol they devised, they will stop the leak quickly. But the new plan has not been approved, and they fear that they will be fired if they take the initiative to act without prior approval. However, if one enacts the old protocol, and the other enacts the new protocol, an ecological disaster is all but guaranteed.

Look at the table above to help clarify things.

QUESTION #2 : What would you do if you were Andrew? Would you follow the existing protocol, or would you follow the new (but unapproved) protocol? Why or why not? Is there any way to predict the outcome? For full marks, make sure you include at least 2 reasons why you would or would not follow the existing protocol.