5.b) The driver and technology of the automobile
In the metaphor of the semaphore, the driver could represent the will of the individual, since it has its quality and influences the result of the activity of the vehicle.
Also, the driver will be responsible for the maintenance of the vehicle, study the route and decide on some of the conditions of a journey; Now, to know its effect or influence on the effectiveness of the car, quality indicators will have to specify what is the goodness of a car and how to measure and compare the info.
After the last chapters, it is easier to understand one of the reasons for the controversy about the heritability of intelligence and the influence of the environment.
If intelligence would mean the time it takes a car to go from one specific city to another; it will depend in no small extent on the type of road and curves, the weather conditions, whether it is day or night or the driver. These environmental factors are more important than the power of the engine.
On the contrary, if intelligence would be like the goodness of the car in any route and meteorological conditions with a regular driver, the power of the engine will be a useful reference, and a small set of quality indicators related to the factory design –genetic inheritance– can be a significant index.
Of course, the other factors count, and faulty maintenance can cause the car to crash, but usually, that will not happen with minimal maintenance.
Another exciting aspect of this metaphor is that many elements of a car correlate from the technological point of view despite fulfilling independent functions.
The subject of training is exciting; a driver can learn the curves of a mountain road and substantially improve the time needed for a transfer. However, this does not mean that it is a better driver, nor that the car is more powerful than before, nor that if two years pass without doing the route or the road changes again, the advantages obtained with training, will maintain.
On the contrary: "A good driver will always be a good drive."
Likewise, "A good car will always be a good car."
Finally, if there are not the means to know the technical characteristics of a car, when estimating them based on the time spent on a the route, many errors will be committed –or the variance of the estimator will be extensive– due to the number of factors influencing the results of a particular path with a specific driver.
Note that the mentioned factors cannot be readily isolated either because each of them, in turn, has multiple elements. For example, the same person may be tired, happy, in a hurry or, quite the opposite.
5.c) Goodness indicators
To find a reference of the general goodness of a car in the realization of any function and be able to compare with each other, even if it is not very accurate, it will be necessary to use measures of its most relevant characteristics.
A good representation of a car can be its price, but it depends on the market and includes aspects such as "celebrity or movie cars," "old cars," brand and advertising effect, unique accessories or taxes.
The power of the engine will be one of the best because it is independent of external conditions and closely related to the price, with the average speed, safety, and with the technology of the car.
The previous indicators plus consumption would have higher accuracy. Note that it is also strongly correlated with technology.
This type of amalgamated information could be the "g" factor of cars. Although it was not an indicator of perfect quality, it would be very comfortable; it would allow simple comparisons understood by everybody. Well, not everyone, there would always be people who denied its usefulness.
* * *
When Mª José finished the book,
Globus said to Goblin:
–Mª José must be very intelligent,
because she’s almost never wrong. –
Goblin answered:
–I agree, and she only talks about what she understands! –