This article in the NZ Herald highlights why I always beat on people to “show me the data” and not repeat what Lou Dobbs said on CNN or Bill O’Reilly on Fox.

China Not To Blame For Most Toy Recalls

The article discusses a study (data!!) just out by Paul Beamish, professor at the Richard Ivey School of Business in London, Ontario, and Hari Bapuji and Andre Laplume with the Asper School of Business in Winnipeg, Manitoba, that found that toys made in countries other than China had a higher rate of recalls on a proportional basis. In other words, toys made in China are “no more a danger than toys made elsewhere.”

The article also notes:

Another surprising finding of the study was that design-related problems, such as the use of detachable parts, outpaced defects attributed to manufacturing issues such as the use of lead paint or toxic chemicals.

“It’s astounding to us, this disconnect between the general perception that most of the problems are manufacturing and most of the problems are lead,” said Beamish. “People have got to get lead paint off the mind.”

You know that it’s our engineers here in the US that design these toys and those specs are sent to China for the Chinese to make them, right?

So yes, some of toy recalls in the news as of late are China’s fault, but this study suggests not all of them. (Of course, if the absolute numbers of toys being sourced from China is high, it does not make the problem go away — I want to try and get a hold of their paper so I can see if/how they factor this into their analysis and conclusions.)

And on this note I segway into what Mark Twain once said, and I highlighted in a recent post :

“We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it — and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again — and that is well; but she also will never sit down on a cold one anymore.”

What do you think he meant by this, and how is this relevant to the above?