Know What You Do Not Knwo

Saying associated with the The states invasion of Iraq

"At that place are known knowns" is a phrase from a response United states Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld gave to a question at a U.S. Section of Defense (DoD) news conference on February 12, 2002, about the lack of evidence linking the government of Iraq with the supply of weapons of mass destruction to terrorist groups.^[1]

Rumsfeld stated:

Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as nosotros know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We too know there are known unknowns; that is to say nosotros know there are some things we do non know. But there are besides unknown unknowns—the ones we don't know we don't know. And if one looks throughout the history of our country and other free countries, information technology is the latter category that tends to be the difficult ones.^[1]

The statement became the subject of much commentary including a 2013 documentary film, The Unknown Known, directed past Errol Morris.^[2]

Origins [edit]

Rumsfeld'south argument brought much fame and public attention to the concepts of known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns, but national security and intelligence professionals have long used an analysis technique referred to every bit the Johari window. The idea of unknown unknowns was created in 1955 by two American psychologists, Joseph Luft (1916–2014) and Harrington Ingham (1916–1995) in their evolution of the Johari window. They used information technology as a technique to assistance people better understand their relationship with themselves likewise as others.

The term was also ordinarily used within NASA.^[3] Rumsfeld cited NASA administrator William Graham in his memoir; he wrote that he had get-go heard "a variant of the phrase" from Graham when they served together on the Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States during the tardily 1990s.^[4] Kirk Borne, an astrophysicist who was employed as a data scientist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre at the time, noted in an April 2013 TED talk that he had used the phrase "unknown unknowns" in a talk to personnel at the Homeland Security Transition Planning Office a few days prior to Rumsfeld's remarks, and speculated that the term may have percolated up to Rumsfeld and other high-ranking officials in the defense force department.^[5]

The terms "known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns" are often used in project management and strategic planning^[6] circles.

Known unknowns refers to "risks you are aware of, such as canceled flights ..."^[7]

Unknown unknowns are risks that come from situations that are so unexpected that they would non be considered. Contemporary usage is largely consistent with the earliest known usages. For example, the term was used in show given to the British Columbia Purple Committee of Inquiry into Uranium Mining in 1979:

Site atmospheric condition ever pose unknowns, or uncertainties, which may become known during construction or operation to the detriment of the facility and possibly lead to damage of the environment or endanger public health and safety. The adventure posed by unknowns is somewhat dependent on the nature of the unknown relative to past experience. This has led me classify unknowns into i of the following two types: ane. known unknowns (expected or foreseeable conditions), which tin be reasonably anticipated just not quantified based on past experience equally exemplified by instance histories (in Appendix A) and 2. Unknown unknowns (unexpected or unforeseeable conditions), which pose a potentially greater risk simply because they cannot be anticipated based on by feel or investigation. Known unknowns result from recognized but poorly understood phenomena. On the other paw, unknown unknowns are phenomena which cannot be expected because there has been no prior experience or theoretical basis for expecting the phenomena.^[viii]

The term also appeared in a 1982 New Yorker article on the aerospace industry, which cites the example of metal fatigue, the cause of crashes in de Havilland Comet airliners in the 1950s.^[9]

Reaction [edit]

While the remarks led to some ridicule towards the Bush assistants in full general and Rumsfeld in item, there are those who respect the statement. Defenders include Canadian columnist Mark Steyn, who chosen it "in fact a brilliant distillation of quite a complex matter",^[ten] and Australian economist and blogger John Quiggin, who wrote, "Although the language may be tortured, the basic point is both valid and important."^[11]

Psychoanalytic philosopher Slavoj Žižek says that beyond these iii categories there is a fourth, the unknown known, that which ane intentionally refuses to acknowledge that i knows: "If Rumsfeld thinks that the main dangers in the confrontation with Iraq were the 'unknown unknowns', that is, the threats from Saddam whose nature we cannot even suspect, then the Abu Ghraib scandal shows that the main dangers lie in the "unknown knowns"—the disavowed beliefs, suppositions and obscene practices nosotros pretend non to know about, even though they form the background of our public values."^[12]. Related to this is the concept of tacit cognition, knowledge which we may human activity on, but not be enlightened of or able to clear.

High german sociologists Daase and Kessler (2007) agree with a bones point of Rumsfeld in stating that the cognitive frame for political practice may be determined past the human relationship between what we know, what we do not know, what we cannot know, but Rumsfeld left out what we do non like to know.^[13]

The issue has been used in multiple books to discuss risk cess.^{[2] [14]}

Rumsfeld named his 2011 autobiography Known and Unknown: A Memoir. In an "Author's Note" at the start of the book, he expressly best-selling the source of his memoir's championship and mentioned a few examples of his argument'due south prominence, including a Wikipedia commodity.^[fifteen] The Unknown Known is the title of Errol Morris'southward 2013 biographical documentary film about Rumsfeld.^[16] In the documentary, Rumsfield initially defines "unknown knowns" as "the things yous think you lot know, that it turns out you did not", and toward the end of the film he defines the term as "things that y'all know, that you don't know you know".^[17]

In add-on, the comment earned a Foot in Mouth Award.

Belittling sciences [edit]

The term "known unknowns" has been applied to the identification of chemical substances using analytical chemistry approaches, specifically mass spectrometry. In many cases, an unknown to an investigator that is detected in an experiment is actually known in the chemic literature, a reference database, or an Internet resources. These types of compounds are termed "known unknowns". The term was originally coined by Trivial et al.^[18] and reported a number of times in the literature since then as a full general approach.^{[19] [20] [21] [22]}

See likewise [edit]

• Blackness swan theory
• Dunning–Kruger effect
• Epistemic modal logic
• Four stages of competence
• I know that I know naught
• Ignoramus et ignorabimus
• Ignotum per ignotius
• Johari window
• Knightian uncertainty
• Known and Unknown: A Memoir
• Outside Context Trouble
• Russell's teapot
• Undecidable trouble
• The Unknown Known
• Wild card (foresight)

References [edit]

1. ^ ^{a b} "Defense force.gov News Transcript: DoD News Briefing – Secretary Rumsfeld and Gen. Myers, Usa Department of Defense force (defence force.gov)". February 12, 2002. Archived from the original on March 20, 2018.
2. ^ ^{a b} Girard, John; Girard, JoAnn (June 1, 2009). A Leader'due south Guide to Knowledge Direction: Drawing on the Past to Enhance Hereafter Performance. Business Adept Printing. pp. 55–. ISBN9781606490198 . Retrieved February 10, 2014.
3. ^ "NASA Program Direction and Procurement Procedures and Practices: Hearings Earlier the Subcommittee on Space Science and Applications of the Committee on Science and Applied science, U.S. House of Representatives, 90-seventh Congress, First Session, June 24, 25, 1981". 1981.
4. ^ Rumsfeld, Donald (2011). Known and Unknown: A Memoir. New York: Penguin Group. p. xiv. ISBN9781101502495.
5. ^ "Big Data, Modest World: Kirk Borne at TEDxGeorgeMasonU". Archived from the original on December 22, 2021. Retrieved September fourteen, 2015.
6. ^ "Strategy Under Uncertainty". November 1997.
7. ^ Biafore, Bonnie (Dec 14, 2011). "Projection Direction Fundamentals". Lynda.com. Lynda.com/LinkedIN. Retrieved October 17, 2015.
8. ^ Argument of Show of E. D'Appolonia, D'Appolonia Consulting Engineers, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Phase V: Waste Disposal. Proceedings of the British Columbia Purple Committee of Research into Uranium Mining. ISBN978-0-7718-8198-5. 0005037606.
9. ^ Newhouse, J. (June 14, 1982), "A reporter at large: a sporty game; 1-betting the company", New Yorker, pp. 48–105 .
10. ^ Steyn, Marking (Dec nine, 2003). "Rummy speaks the truth, not gobbledygook". Daily Telegraph. Retrieved October 30, 2008.
11. ^ Quiggin, John (February ten, 2004). "In Defense force of Rumsfeld".
12. ^ "What Rumsfeld Doesn't Know That He Knows About Abu Ghraib". Retrieved Feb 23, 2009.
13. ^ Knowns and Unknowns in the 'War on Terror': Dubiety and the Political Construction of Danger, Christopher Daase and Oliver Kessler, Security Dialogue, Dec 2007; vol. 38, 4: pp. 411–434.
14. ^ Neve, Geert de; Luetchford, Peter (2008). Hidden Hands in the Market: Ethnographies of Fair Trade, Ethical Consumption, and Corporate Social Responsibility. Emerald Group Publishing. pp. 252–. ISBN9781848550582 . Retrieved Feb 10, 2014.
15. ^ Rumsfeld, Donald (2011). Known and Unknown: A Memoir. New York: Penguin Group. p. xiii. ISBN9781101502495.
16. ^ Scott (2014). "Non Giving an Inch in a Battle of Wits and Words; Deciphering Donald H. Rumsfeld in 'The Unknown Known'". The New York Times . Retrieved April four, 2014.
17. ^ Morris, Errol (Director) (December 13, 2013). The Unknown Known (Motion flick). Los Angeles, CA: The Weinstein Company.
18. ^ Little, J.L.; Cleven, C.D.; Brownish, S.D. (2011). "Identification of "Known Unknowns" utilizing authentic mass information and chemical abstracts service databases". J. Am. Soc. Mass Spectrom. 22 (2): 348–359. Bibcode:2011JASMS..22..348L. doi:10.1007/s13361-010-0034-three. PMID 21472594.
19. ^ Little, James L. (2011). "Identification of "known unknowns" utilizing accurate mass data and ChemSpider". Journal of the American Society for Mass Spectrometry. 23 (1): 179–185. doi:10.1007/s13361-011-0265-y. PMID 22069037.
20. ^ Stein, S. (2012). "Mass Spectral Reference Libraries: An Ever-Expanding Resource for Chemical Identification". Belittling Chemistry. 84 (17): 7274–7282. doi:ten.1021/ac301205z. PMID 22803687.
21. ^ McEachran, Andrew D.; Sobus, Jon R.; Williams, Antony J. (2016). "Identifying known unknowns using the US EPA'southward CompTox Chemistry Dashboard". Belittling and Bioanalytical Chemistry. 409 (vii): 1729–1735. doi:10.1007/s00216-016-0139-z. PMID 27987027. S2CID 31754962.
22. ^ Schymanski, Emma L.; Williams, Antony J. (2017). "Open up Science for Identifying "Known Unknown" Chemicals". Environmental Science and Applied science. 51 (x): 5357–5359. Bibcode:2017EnST...51.5357S. doi:10.1021/acs.est.7b01908. PMC6260822. PMID 28475325.

External links [edit]

• "Defense Department Conference". C-Bridge. February 12, 2002.
  Reporter:^37:19 ...Because there are reports that there is no evidence of a directly link between Baghdad and some of these terrorist organizations.
  Rumsfeld: Reports that say that something hasn't happened are e'er interesting to me...
• "DoD News Briefing – Secretary Rumsfeld and General Myers". Transcript. Press Operations. United states of america Department of Defense. Feb 12, 2002.
• Logan, David C. (March 1, 2009). "Known knowns, known unknowns, unknown unknowns and the propagation of scientific enquiry". Periodical of Experimental Botany. 60 (3): 712–4. doi:10.1093/jxb/erp043. PMID 19269994.

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Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_known_knowns

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