3.4 flights in a million will crash, if you leave the business of airlines to GE or Motorola: that is the guarantee given by companies which claim to offer six-sigma quality assurance. “Six Sigma is a highly disciplined process that helps us focus on developing and delivering near-perfect products and services. Why 'Sigma'? The word is a statistical term that measures how far a given process deviates from perfection. The central idea behind Six Sigma is that if you can measure how many 'defects' you have in a process, you can systematically figure out how to eliminate them and get as close to 'zero defects' as possible. To achieve Six Sigma Quality, a process must produce no more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities. An 'opportunity' is defined as a chance for nonconformance, or not meeting the required specifications. This means we need to be nearly flawless in executing our key processes.” [http://www.businessballs.com/sixsigma.htm]
Note that the whole thing talks about near perfection and nearly flawless. But not exactly. If you are travelling by a train, and it is relying on a six-sigma signaling system, and assuming that the signaling system has provided correct signals one million times before your journey, it is likely to collide with another train; in fact, 3.4 percent chances are there that it will collide. You do the math…
Do we hear of birds that crash once in a million, except when they collide with human contraptions like airplanes? No. The reason is the fledglings are allowed to fly only when the parents are one-hundred percent sure that the little ones can fly. In the human world however planes that have been tried and tested in labs are allowed to fly, with an error rate of 3.4. That is six sigma for you in brief. Should we do that? Should we allow our children to ride motor cycles at ages when they are too young to handle the bike? We should not, but we do. We allow trains to carry passengers knowing full well that 3.4 in a million of them will die in an accident. That is a small number, unless it is you…
We don’t see monkeys and chipmunks falling off trees – not the smallest of them. So then are we humans a superior species? We are not. We are not better off than animals in the forests; we are not better off than birds in the sky: we are not, as the Christians believe – made in the image of God. Unless of course, as we all are beginning to suspect, God himself is not infallible. A God who cannot stop things colliding in His creation, a God who is watching us helplessly as we destroy mother earth. A God who is not omnipotent (He cannot stop accidents from occurring), not omnipresent (if He is, he is a silent bystander), omniscient (if He is, he doesn’t stop us from self-destruction). If he is, what kind of a God is He or She?
Birds are better off
My theory of evolution is that the losers from the monkey-chimp era ‘evolved’ into humans and have created a mess on this earth. The real smart ones went on to be birds. They are free; they communicate without worrying about grammar and tense. Birds also eat very little and they don’t visit gyms to reduce weight. All manner of diseases are associated with human beings, but not with birds. I am not a vet, but only animals associated with humans have health problems. Animals in the wild die of natural causes. So who argues that humans are a superior specious to all others. That is sheer nonsense: it is Darwin’s ideology that permeates through the ages and makes us believe that we are closest to God.
It is actually the birds which are closest to God (heaven). In fact, I don’t think birds will have a re-birth. So what if they get eaten in this life. Eternal life is available to them: they go straight to ‘apunarbhavam’. Vivekananda said: Natvaham Kaamaye Rajyam, Na Swargam, Na apunarbhavam; Kamaye duhkha taptanam praninam arti nashanam (I don’t want kingdom, nor heaven; nor even release from the cycle of birth and death. I want that the thirst of the wretched of this planet to be quenched.)
Maybe the best of us will come back as birds and become food for the hungry and thirsty?
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