Updated Jan 27, 2023 

This post at LinkedIn.

Optimal performance in any aspect of life is not possible without a basic awareness and understanding of variation and the inter-relationship between science and religion. The contributions of W. Edwards Deming regarding quality improvement are more commonly known within the management, engineering, and statistical communities.  Deming’s work is not commonly known within philosophical and religious circles.

Albert Einstein on Religion and Science 

• Objective knowledge provides us with powerful instruments for the achievements of certain ends, but the ultimate goal itself and the longing to reach it must come from another source.
•  Intelligence makes clear to us the interrelation of means and ends. But mere thinking cannot give us a sense of the ultimate and fundamental ends. To make clear these fundamental ends and valuations, and to set them fast in the emotional life of the individual, seems to me precisely the most important function which religion has to perform in the social life of man. 

Definitions (Briticanna)

• science, any system of knowledge that is concerned with the physical world and its phenomena and that entails unbiased observations and systematic experimentation. In general, a science involves a pursuit of knowledge covering general truths or the operations of fundamental laws.
• religion, human beings’ relation to that which they regard as holy, sacred, absolute, spiritual, divine, or worthy of special reverence.
• philosophy, (from Greek, by way of Latin, philosophia, “love of wisdom”) the rational, abstract, and methodical consideration of reality as a whole or of fundamental dimensions of human existence and experience. 

Clare-Crawford Mason introduced the relevance of Deming’s contributions within the context of philosophy. She was the producer of the NBC documentary “If Japan Can, Why Can’t We?” (1980) which introduced Deming’s work to America. This led to Deming’s book Out of the Crisis (1982). The first edition of Deming’s book, The New Economics was published in 1993.

• England’s – follow-up version of the story
• And, yet: “Toyota’s per-car profits lap Detroit’s Big 3 automakers”, The Detroit News

Collection – Clare Crawford Mason articles- Curious Cat Management Improvement

• The Discovery of the Prophet of Quality – W. Edwards Deming
• Profound Knowledge: A New Synthesis from a Transcending Perspective to Personal Improvement, by Clare Crawford – Mason, Speech to the Deming Institute, July 27, 2007
  • As you know I am a recovering journalist who reported on the White House from late LBJ to early Ronald Reagan and I was quite sure I knew how the world worked until I met Dr. Deming. Then I learned I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

• Better Questions, Wiser Answers, Washington Times, July 1, 2007
  • The Deming-Toyota-Baldrige method and systems thinking can improve schools, government agencies or any organization, even military invasions and occupations because it offers new ways to look at the bigger picture. It allows an organization to be greater than the sum of its parts as the people in the system learn to work together more effectively.
  • Why is there no national debate on more effectively managing these critical systems of our society? Why don’t leaders/candidates investigate and discuss new ways of approaching problems? The role of leadership is to identify problems and propose solutions. If new ways of thinking and defining problems are needed, that should be the subject of the presidential campaign.

Not commonly mentioned including by Clare-Crawfored Mason, is that Deming was a devout Christian and would have been heavily influenced by a Biblical worldview.   I provide additional information on the likely effect of this influence in my posts and website.

• Success Through Quality – Summary of the overall philosophy and concepts including a community-based application approach.
•  Deming: Quality and Spirituality
• Christian, Citizenship, and Quality Management Apologetic 
  • Application (PDSA) examples
• Guest Column Indpls Star – Faith and values section ““People working together can make a more perfect union”

Additional information:

Deming also acknowledged the influence of C.I. Lewis who was introduced to him by Walter A. Shewhart. In 1986, Deming stated that “Another half-century may pass before the full spectrum of Dr. Shewhart’s contributions has been revealed in liberal education, science, and industry.” (Walter Shewhart, Statistical Method from the Viewpoint of Quality Control (New York, NY: Dover Publications, 1986), p. ii.).

• Book: Mind and the World Order: Outline of a Theory of Knowledge Paperback – January 1, 1991, by Clarence Irving Lewis (Author). Thought-provoking work outlines theory of “conceptual pragmatism,” taking into account modern philosophic thought and the implications of modern mathematics. Topics include philosophic method, metaphysics, given element in experience, nature of the a priori, experience and order, much else. Stimulating intellectual adventure.
• The Influence of C. I. Lewis on Walter Shewhart and W. Edwards Deming, By John Hunter December 8, 2016
• C-I-Lewis-Shewhart-and-Deming-by-G-T-Peterson
• Walter A. Shewhart – Wikipedia. W. Edwards Deming said of him: As a statistician, he was, like so many of the rest of us, self-taught, on a good background of physics and mathematics.