The Personal Website of Mark W. Dawson
Containing His Articles, Observations, Thoughts, Meanderings,
and some would say Wisdom (and some would say not).
The Intellectual and the Preposterous
"There are some ideas so absurd that
only an intellectual could believe them."
- George Orwell
It is an unfortunate consequence of the lack of incomplete knowledge, improper reasoning, and overeducation, undereducation, and miseducation that many intellectual persons drift toward preposterousness. They can also be wrong due to incorrect premises, reasoning, and conclusions that are the result of faulty Formal and Informal Logic, Logical Fallacies, and Cognitive Biases as outlined in my article, "Reasoning". This situation is not helped by many intellectuals not experiencing everyday life as they have been cocooned in an academic or institutional environment where they are often insulated from the realities of the everyday world.
Experts often testify inexpertly as in my Chirp on, "06/03/20 Experts ought to be on tap and not on top", as well as creating and quoting Studies and Statistics improperly as in my article, "Oh What a Tangled Web We Weave". What we have all forgotten is that experts can be, and often are, wrong. Wrong because they lack sufficient knowledge of all aspects of an issue, wrong because the facts they rely on are incorrect, wrong because they have an unrealistic belief in the accuracy of their statistics and modeling, and most importantly, they are wrong because they lack wisdom. They can also be wrong due to incorrect premises, reasoning, and conclusions that are the result of incorrect Formal and Informal Logic, Logical Fallacies, and Cognitive Biases as outlined in my aforementioned article on 'Reasoning'. And sometimes, the experts have hidden agendas for their expert opinions. Hidden agendas for personal or financial reasons or to accomplish what they believe to be good for Americans.
The reason we elect politicians is for them to make wise judgments based on expert opinions as well as to listen to the voice of the people. Regrettably, politicians often pick and choose experts that agree with their political agenda and just as often discount experts that disagree with their political agenda, rather than consider all viewpoints of expert opinions. Therefore, we should expect politicians to be leery of expert opinions and to make their own judgments. And we should expect these politicians to take responsibility for their decisions. But the American people also have a responsibility. The responsibility to elect wise politicians and hold them accountable for their decisions. If the politicians and electorate cannot take on this responsibility, then we will continue to have experts on top.
We should always require when questioning all intellectual persons, of all viewpoints, that they should be prepared to respond to the following questions, as formulated by one of today's leading economist and social commentator:
"The three questions that will destroy
most of the arguments of the left:
- Compared to what?
- At what cost?
- What hard evidence do you have?"
- Thomas Sowell
And the wisdom of one of our Founding Fathers:
"Doubt a little of your own
infallibility."
- Benjamin Franklin
We should always doubt the infallibility of experts and examine the experts' answers to these questions of comparison, answers which often are not given or not appropriate comparisons. When we examine these answers, we can discern that many answers to the question of comparison are based on the extremes. Often these extremes are to achieve utopian ideals or to avoid calamitous consequences. In all cases of answers of comparison, we should remember:
"Nothing is as good as it appears, or
as bad as it seems. But on rare occasions, it can be better, or
worse."
- Mark Dawson
The costs of doing something can be divided into the tangible and the intangible. The tangible costs can vary based on the assumptions utilized to calculate these costs. The people in favor of something often utilize assumptions that reduce the costs, while the people opposed to something often utilize assumptions that increase the costs. In both cases, the assumptions may be incorrect, imprecise, or false, which leads to inaccurate cost projections. In all cases of government spending, history has shown that the costs incurred have always exceeded the cost projections. The intangible costs are much more difficult to calculate, especially in government spending. This is because government spending (and taxes) provokes a response on the behavior of the American people. This provocation is not easy to quantify as different people will react differently from other people and in unexpected ways. Anyone who claims that they can predict or anticipate these responses is either unwise or foolish, and we should not pay any attention to their projections. We should also remember:
"The hubris of governmental leaders
who believe that they can correct or control any situation is
astounding."
- Mark Dawson
As to evidence, much of the time, it can be statistically or computer modeling based, with all the problems I have outlined in my article, "Oh What A Tangled Web We Weave" and "Computer Modeling". Many times, evidence can be anecdotal based, with the anecdotes being inappropriate or misleading. Also, most often, these anecdotes have the inherent problems of correlation vs. causality, as examined in the Wikipedia article, "Correlation does not imply causation". Hard evidence is often difficult to ascertain, and fact-based "Reasoning" based on hard evidence may lead you to a conclusion that you did not anticipate and a conclusion that does not fit into your preferred policies and positions. As always, we should remember:
"Just because you "believe" something
to be true does not mean that you "know" something is true, and just
because someone says it is true doesn't make it
true."
- Mark Dawson
In all cases, when thinking about what an intellectual has recommended, and before we heed their advice, we should examine what may be the foreseen consequences of implementing their advice and the repercussions of "The Law of Unintended Consequences" of their advice. Most often, when we examine an intellectual's advice, we will find that their advice is inaccurate or incomplete, has faulty reasoning, and sometimes is preposterous. Therefore, never take an intellectual's advice at face value, but be wary and determine for yourself the validity of their facts, premises, reasoning, and conclusions.
It is important that we have these intellectuals so to assist us in the advancement of humanity and improvements in our everyday life, but it is also important that we take their pronouncements with a heavy dose of skepticism. For a wrong expert opinion will lead to wrong decisions that have a negative consequence on our society.