Skip to main content

Simple Answers

 


People like to have simple answers. That is why we categorize things. It makes it easier to fit into our minds. We give magnitude numbers to things like earthquakes hurricanes, and tornados.  It is easy to do. Measuring wind speed or the magnitude of vibrations is easy. The problem is that how destructive an earthquake or a tornado is may not necessarily increase with the numerical index. A magnitude 6 earthquake might be 100 times more destructive than a magnitude 7. The magnitude 7 might be deeper underground, or be of shorter duration. The magnitude 6 might be under a populated area with lax building codes. There are a lot of factors that determine how destructive something is, not the least of which is the amount of human suffering. Quantifying the human suffering of an event is a job more suited to an artist that a bean counter.

But people want simple answers. Why did the Titanic sink? The captain must have been an idiot. There is a simple answer for you. It is all the answer as some people want. They don’t want to be bothered with the nuance. But the captain was being pressured by the shipping line to beat the record for an Atlantic crossing. The ship was considered unsinkable. Icebergs that late in the season were considered rare. The wireless operator received a transmission that there was heavy sea ice in the area, but he failed to report it to the captain. The builders trying to save money, used inferior steel in the rivets, weakening the hull. The second officer, who did not make the voyage, forgot to return the keys to the binocular locker, so the lookouts had no binoculars. Captain Smith probably deserves some of the blame, but the full story is more complex.

Politicians know that people want simple answers and they do their best to give people simple answers because if they try to explain the full story, it weakens their argument. It loses punch. Consider two candidates who are talking to voters about unemployment. The first candidate says that the reason we have high unemployment is because of A, B, C, and D, and then starts to explain economic theory. The second candidate says the reason we have high unemployment is because of X. Just X. People are going to vote for the second candidate because he gave them an answer they can understand. Now the first candidate sees this and learns, so he starts dumbing down his argument to couch it in simple terms. “Populist” politicians love to do this; find a simple answer no matter how complex the problem. Often this involves a scape goat. In Hitler’s Germany, it was the Jews who were blamed for all the problems. Truth doesn’t matter. A simple answer is all that matters. It’s so much easier to say, “it’s all their fault,” than it is to actually fix problems. In many countries today racial minorities find themselves being blamed as the root cause for . . . whatever the problem of the day is. Again, truth doesn’t matter. A simple answer is all that matters.

Science likes to get the full story. If the answer isn’t simple, so be it. The truth is what is important. Thus, there is a sort of a love/hate relationship between the general public and science. The public loves it when science discloses wonders, but hate it when science tells them something they don’t want to hear, and the reasons for that ‘something’ are complex and may require a science degree to fully understand. Some politicians attack science when it suits their needs because they know the scientists will be hopeless in the court of public opinion.

I am sorry, but the answers to some questions are not black or white like we might want them to be. Answers to big questions require complex deliberation and patience.


Star Liner

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Iron Fist in a Velvet Glove

  Despite both of us having science backgrounds, my wife and I share a leaning toward the artistic, though we may express it in different ways. In her life, my wife has been a painter, a poet, a singer, an actor, and a fiction writer. Not to mention a mother. I don’t remember what precipitated this event, but my wife, my son, and I were at home in the front room. My wife was responding to something my son said. She said, “remember, you get half your brains from me. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be a complete idiot.” To which my son started howling with laughter and said to me,” I think you have just been insulted.” Sometimes I feel like Rodney Dangerfield. I get no respect. But that is not an uncommon state of affairs for fatherhood. When my son was going to middle school and high school, my wife was always the one to go in with him to get him registered for classes. One time she was unable to go and I had to be the one to get him registered. “Ugh,” he said. “why can’t Mama do i...
1 comment
Read more

Empathy

  Websters defines Empathy as: “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another.” Empathy is what makes us human, though lord knows there are many humans who don’t seem to have any. A person without empathy is like a caveman, only concerned for himself. Selfish. It is a lack of community and by extension, a lack of the need for civilization. The person who lacks empathy can have a bit of community, but only with others exactly like himself. It seems like societies go through cycles of empathy and less empathy. Sometimes a single event can change the course of society. Prior to America’s involvement in WWII, the general feeling in America was not very empathetic. We had our own problems. We were still dealing with the lingering effects of the Great Depression, and had been for years. That kind of stress makes it hard to think of others. Hitler was slashing through Europe. He and his fol...
1 comment
Read more

A Deception

  I have a secret. I deceived my mother. Okay, it was like 50 years ago and she is gone now, but still . . .  I was generally a good boy. I did as I was told. My family lived a pretty strait-laced, middle-class, fairly conservative life. We were a G-rated family, well, until my older siblings broke the mold, but at this time, I was still in the mold. My friend Rich and I made a plan. Rich had asked me if I wanted to see Cabaret . He said he didn’t think much of Liza Minnelli, but he wouldn’t mind seeing her take her clothes off. We were like 13 years old and sex was ever-present on our minds as much as it was absent in our households. Cabaret was not rated R. It was rated PG. The ratings system has changed since that time. There was no PG-13; there was just the choice of G, PG, and R  (X was not an official rating).  Apparently the makers of Cabaret satisfied the ratings commission enough to escape an R rating, so it was PG.   There was therefore no law or ...
Post a Comment
Read more