Snap judgment

One of the most difficult things in the world to do, for me, is withholding judgment. It's something I have to constantly work at, to train myself in, and for a scientist or a mathematician looking to discover the untested truth of propositions, one of the most important.

The moment I look at a proposed theorem, or a math problem, or read the description of a court case, I want to be able to say "Well, obviously, it's this." I want to know that man is definitely guilty, I want to know that the proposition holds for all x>3, I want to be able to tell immediately if a fuel is a thermodynamically viable carbon-neutral energy vessel. I'm impatient like that, and growing up with the ability to answer nearly any of the "math" problems posed to me within seconds probably didn't help.

I mean, I sped my way through the SAT, taking less than half the time allotted on each section, just because I wanted to say I knew answers immediately, to make snap judgments. It didn't matter that it was important for college admissions, and it probably didn't help that the one time I actually went back and made myself check my answers, telling myself the test score was important, I got a 1480 that was almost exactly the same 1480 I'd gotten the previous year (740/740 vs 760/720).

But the thing is, I also hate being wrong . I just have to be right, and being wrong would be even worse than having to wait for the answer. So I learned - slowly and painfully - to withhold judgment. The study of philosophy has been very helpful for me in developing that patience, and I've withheld judgment about many things that few people hesitate to fix in their mind. I'm comfortable with being an agnostic; I push myself to try foods that I was sure I disliked; I understand how to take a hypothetical position and work up a whole tree of contingent conclusions while keeping my assumptions in clear sight.

It's not what I really wanted - to know the answer now - but if I can only either be sure I'm right, or have my answer now, I'd rather be sure.

Median voter theorem

Why politicians talk in code

The median voter theorem is an interesting result in the study of elections. Suppose you have some political spectrum, and two candidates. Doesn't matter how many dimensions there are to that spectrum, even, with two candidates; the politician who is closer to the center (median) of voter positions will be closer to more voters. Voters - if acting rationally - will vote for the closest candidate to them.

Voila, so suddenly we have centrist candidates - or do we? There's another problem: Turnout. The further away a voter is from a candidate, the less likely a voter is to turn out. In fact, if they feel far away on the fringe, they may feel the difference between the two centrist candidates is negligible. Perhaps a third party candidate will look attractive - it's time to make a statement!

But what if you can occupy more than one position at once? Suddenly, you can secure much more of the political spectrum. This is why politicians talk in code, and try to position their opponents as extremists; why we see different messages sent through different media. Coded language is understood differently by different segments of the political spectrum, and by segmenting your audience into different groups, it allows you to try to position yourself near the median of each group rather than the whole population.

And this is how a politician masters the median voter theorem; not by moving carefully to the center of the population, but by seeming to be in different places when looked at from different perspectives.

One kilogram does not equal 2.2 pounds

How you react to this statement tells me something, I think. If you've taken physics, you know that pounds are a unit of force, while kilograms are a unit of mass, and therefore, 2.2 pounds does not equal 1 kilogram. 1 kilogram of matter, on Earth, weighs 2.2 pounds (give or take a few small fractions; Earth's gravity field isn't quite uniform); on the moon, the same object will still mass one kilogram, while it will weigh only a few ounces.

So it's quite technically correct to say 1 kilogram doesn't equal 2.2 pounds. On the other hand, for all practical intents and purposes, that's the useful conversion to make, since the newton (metric unit of force) and the slug (standard imperial unit of mass) are more rarely used units.

Some people react with a nod. They're aware of the difference, and consider it an important one. Others react with a groan - they know that technically it's correct, but as far as they're concerned, the difference is a technical distinction that doesn't really matter. And a few become quite confused, because they don't know what the distinction is between weight and mass.

Anecdote and Argument

We are sociable creatures who enjoy telling stories. We learn and teach through parables and fables; it should come as no surprise, therefore, that we turn to anecdotes in laying out arguments for and against something.

The problem is, though, all too often we generalize inappropriately. We fail to see the larger picture, because we're interested in the compelling details in front of us that we can grasp directly. When we have a cold winter in Boone, it does not mean that global warming has stopped. The scope of the data needed to talk meaningfully about global warming is much larger than a season in the life of a single town in the mountains.

The same with education, with market policy, with vitamin supplements, and so on. The more grand the topic, the more important it is that we focus on the larger picture. For example, take health care. In the larger view of things, it does not matter if one patient experiences a three hour wait "because of socialized medicine" or another patient faces a jaw-droppingly unexpected million dollar bill "because the private insurers are greedy." What matters is how well the system works and at what cost.

Whether or not abstinence-only education works is a question that cannot be answered by pointing at Bristol Palin; it can only be answered by studies examining the changes in pregnancy rates and STD frequency in its wake (studies do find abstinence-only education lacking, as it so happens). Enjoy your stories, but before you draw your conclusions, how about holding out for science?

I, Agnostic

Occasionally, I tell people that I am an agnostic. This seems to provoke some discussion, now and then, as the devout Christian or equally devout atheist would like to know just how I could be indecisive.

I'm not being indecisive, I reply, and so begins my long story. I'm not an agnostic because I haven't seen the arguments presented by either side, and can't make up my mind; I'm an agnostic because I refuse to believe something I can't know. I can't know there is a God; I can't know there isn't a God. Or Goddess. Or some number or combination of divine, semi-divine, near-omnipotent, or other supernatural beings.

That doesn't mean I don't make contingent judgments, or moral judgments, or ethical judgments, or that I don't have my own peculiar fanatical beliefs. I don't need to believe in a God, or know punishments or rewards await me in the afterlife, to decide what I should and should not do; to be the best person that I can be, to do good as best as I can, is its own reward. Nor do I need to deny others their own leap of faith in declaring there is - or is not - some God out there. For practical terms, one good leap of faith is worth quite a bit of philosophizing.

For myself, I am content to muddle along on judgments, logic, and philosophy, knowing there are things out there that I cannot know.