Effect and Cause, Part 3

“Theory without empirical evidence is mere speculation. Empirical evidence without theory is simply a collection of facts. Theory supported by empirical evidence is science” (From my book, Freedom or Serfdom?”

We’ve discussed how there can be several possible causes for an effect, several theories as it were about how it happened. That of course raises the question, “How do we know which, if any, of those theories is correct?” A good question, an important question, and sadly a question with an unpleasant answer. The simple answer is that, in most cases, the answer is beyond human ability. We cannot know if some new theory will come along, better than what we have. Nor can we know if new data will invalidate what now appears to be a solid conclusion.

Perhaps the best example of this is the physics Isaac Newton gave us. There was a saying that Newton was lucky, there was only one universe and he got there first. At the start of the twentieth century it looked like physics was complete, only a few minor questions to answer and all would be known. Scientists regarded Newtonian physics as essentially a perfect theory, well established and never to be overturned. Then along came people like Einstein, Bohr, and Planck. Today we know that Newton’s physics is only an approximation to reality, a great approximation for most conditions, but an approximation that breaks down at very high speeds or very small sizes. Newton’s physics can still help us put a man on the moon, but fails if that man travels at speeds approaching that of light, and it fails when we try to describe the motion of an electron.

So what can we do with our theories? We really need some understanding of cause and effect, so how do we decide which theories to, at least provisionally, accept? Books have been written on the problem so we will obviously not get a full answer here, but we can make a start, and that start will suffice in most cases. There are at least four characteristics we require:

First, the theory must be in agreement with data. Newton’s theories met this requirement until new data showed them to apply only under certain conditions.

Second, theory must in some sense be verifiable. Philosopher of science Karl Popper said that a theory must be falsifiable. It must be conceivable that experiment produces a result contrary to the theory. A classic example is that some might claim that there are invisible, undetectable elephants in the room. If they are undetectable, the theory cannot be falsified. A more important example is the claim that socialism is the best economic system, if only the right leaders are in charge. That theory cannot be falsified because any contrary data is explained away with the claim that it wasn’t real socialism because the wrong people were in charge. Thus the idea of science supporting socialism fails Popper’s test, those claims are not science.

Third, though not a strict requirement, it is useful if the theory predicts something verifiable but previously unknown and not consistent with competing theories. Einstein’s general theory of relativity did this with its prediction of how gravity affects light, a prediction since verified.

Fourth, again not a strict requirement, but we want the theory to be as simple as feasible. This is known as Occam’s Razor, we prefer the simplest theory that fits the facts. That is a useful rule to pick which theory we will find most easily used, but of course does not preclude some more complicated theory working better when more is known.

With all that, we have some indication of which theories we might accept, but there is more. We must keep our minds open. A theory may offend our sensibilities, but Nature cares not at all about what we want to be true. We may want to think there is no difference between ethnic groups, but Nature disagrees, at least in the sports world. Blacks in the U.S. are mostly of West African extraction and they dominate in the NFL and NBA, but are not known for distance running. Meanwhile, Kenyans are not famous as sprinters, but they pretty much own distance events like the Boston Marathon. No that is not reason to discriminate, all should have equal opportunity to try. It is, however, reason to expect that different groups will have different outcomes.

One thing we should not require is that the theory make sense to the human mind. In fact, any real advance in science tends to sound weird, sometimes downright crazy. During one conference on quantum physics, Niels Bohr was quoted as saying, “We here in the back are agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is, is it crazy enough?” Bohr understood that progress means change, sometimes radical change. (However, that does not mean that change is progress. Sometimes change can be detrimental. Let us not seek change for the sake of change.)

If we can find theories that fit the facts, are verifiable, and guide our actions appropriately, that is about all most of us can hope for.

Effect and Cause, Part 2

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” (attributed to Mark Twain)

My friend Randy loaned me a book. I read a chapter or two, then gave it back to him. Why?

The obvious reason would be that I did not like the book. A theory that fits the facts so far, but wrong. I liked it very much.

Or maybe Randy asked me to return it, he wanted to look at something in the book. Wrong again.

Was I too busy to read the book. Nope, that is not the reason either.

Any one of those possible reasons might explain the fact that I returned the book, yet none is correct.

The real reason? I liked that book so much that I went out and bought my own copy.

Knowing a possible cause for something does not prove that to be the actual cause. For most events, there are many possible causes, and the most obvious suspect may or may not be the real cause. We often find ourselves in the position of a detective trying to determine who committed a murder. Was it the man seen fleeing the scene? Should the detective fixate on that one suspect, he may miss the real criminal. That fleeing man may be quite innocent, perhaps running in fear for his own life. Are there other possible suspects? The beneficiary of his life insurance? Someone who held a grudge against the victim? A suspect not yet even on the radar?

In the early stages of the investigation, any competent detective will keep an open mind. If he jumps to conclusions, he will be victim of the blind spot of assuming that one possible villain must be the villain. In most cases, there are many possible villains and he must find the right one.

Likewise, when we seek the cause of some problem, there may be multiple “suspects,” even some we may not know about. Our task is to find the “guilty” party and gather enough evidence to get a “conviction.” Indeed, the first step is sometimes to determine if what we see is really a problem, or just random fluctuations in how things happen.

Just because a theory makes sense does not make that theory true. There may be other theories, as good or better that also fit the facts. And there may be important facts yet unknown that would blow the theory to bits.

For example, I belong to an organization of nearly 100 members. Those members include not a single black person. What can you conclude about that organization? Why the racial imbalance? Many in today’s world would scream “racism,” but could there be other reasons? There are, though I do not claim to know all of them. First this is a mountain rescue team. To do our job, we must recruit from among competent mountaineers, and there are few Blacks with the requisite skills. In my entire life I’ve only met one black person who enjoyed mountaineering, a man who learned the skill as a ranger in the army.

Of course, that raises another question: why are black people so underrepresented in mountaineering. To that I must respond as does Tevye in the musical “Fiddler on the Roof.” “That I can answer. I don’t know.” Surely the mountains and woods care not a bit about the skin color of people enjoying their beauty, nor have I ever seen any evidence that any mountaineering organization is prejudiced. And Blacks in many sports have demonstrated tremendous physical ability, ability that could transfer to mountaineering.

Why are there so few black mountaineers? A good question. I wish I had a good answer.

Part of the answer may be cost, since the gear and training for mountaineering can be moderately expensive, but that cannot be the entire answer. Nor can accessibility. There are plenty of Blacks living near mountains. I can only conclude that, for some reason, Blacks are not as interested in mountaineering as are Whites. That lack of interest might also explain why we have no Blacks on our rescue team. Why are they are not interested? I have no idea.

I do know that anyone accusing our team of racism or sexism would be wrong.

Effect and Cause, Part 1

Suppose you drive by a bar and see two men fighting. What would you guess caused that fight? Maybe it is over a woman, an argument over a pool game, or maybe they have a preexisting dispute, or any of a myriad of other possible causes. The fact that there is a fight does not tell you what caused it. That is part of a general rule: knowing about the effect does not usually tell you the cause. In fact it is common for more than one cause to work together to create an effect.

Now let's change things just a bit. Again two men are going at it tooth and nail, but now one is white, one is black. Does that change our conclusion? It should not. Every possible cause of a fight between two white men is also a possible cause of a fight between a white man and a black man. True, there is one more possible cause in this case, but the operative word is possible. For all we know, the two men may have had a previous dispute, an argument over a woman, a disagreement over a bet, etc. Racism may or may not have had anything to do with it.

The sad fact is that, in today's world, too many assume that any dispute between people of different skin colors must be due to racism. It ain't necessarily so! It is quite possible for a white and a black man to fight over a woman, over who won a bet, over which football team is better, etc.

This knee-jerk reaction causes a lot of turmoil today. For example, we are now afflicted with demonstrations, mob action, even looting, all blamed on the murder of George Floyd. All reasonable people can agree that Floyd's death was terrible, but was racism involved? Probably not. We have no evidence of racist motives on the part of Officer Chauvin. Instead, we know that they had a previous dispute because Floyd accused Chauvin of being too harsh when they worked together in a security job. Barring new evidence, we should not blame racism for that murder. It is of course possible that racism was involved in the dispute, but that is speculation, and we should not make policy on the basis of speculation and guesswork, nor should we riot on that basis.

Human Rights

We’ve all heard the screams of anguish. North Carolina and Mississippi are denying homosexuals their human rights. Companies and entertainers refuse to have anything to do with those states because of their “crimes.” The heinous “crimes” include not forcing people to violate their religious beliefs, and not forcing young women to share restrooms and shower facilities with men.

Let’s look at what human rights really are.

First, most of us in the U.S. believe that we have a constitutionally protected right to free exercise of religion. Note the wording; that amendment tries to protect not just belief, but exercise of that religious belief. As long as the religious exercise does no overt harm to others, it is to be protected.

Second, most of us believe it a human right to not expose our private parts to members of the opposite sex unless we chose to do so voluntarily. That requires restroom and locker room facilities separated by sex, and that sex is to be determined by body construction. A man or teenage boy who “identifies” as a woman does not thereby obtain the right to share a shower or restroom with our teenage daughter. The irony is that many claim that a constitutional right to privacy allows for unrestricted abortion, then they turn right around and deny right to privacy to women in restrooms and locker rooms.

Sadly, many today claim that “human rights” include the right to force people to act contrary to conscience, to photograph or bake cakes for homosexual weddings. That is true even though the “aggrieved” could easily find another photographer or baker. They also claim that it is a human right for a biological male to claim to identify as female and enter the precincts where real females should be able to expect privacy.

This would be laughable if the results weren’t so serious and if the proponents of these new “rights” weren’t 

so successful at publicizing their ideas. The promoters of these new “rights” are making inroads on the real human rights we all should have. They use law, money, and celebrity to convince people to ignore the obvious and support this nonsense. That will continue unless those who believe in our true human rights speak out – loudly and often.

Living in a Fantasy World

Fantasy can be fun. Movies, books etc. that show life outside what we live on a daily basis entertain us. They are especially attractive to children who do not yet fully understand the world we live in. Who among us, when young, did not think that maybe we could learn to fly like Peter Pan or to use magic to get what we wanted?

That is normal for children. Adults however, if they want to live reasonable lives, must face reality. Tinker Bell will not sprinkle pixie dust on us, nor will we find any magic wand capable of creating the food or anything else we want. As we grow up, we should learn that we get what we need by understanding reality and working with it, not by trying to change that reality – or worse, by pretending that reality is different from what it really is.

Sadly, many “adults” today do not seem to understand those simple facts, and their fantasies do more than their share of damage. We have just seen this in Belgium as Islamic fanatics murdered people at the airport and a metro station. Much of Europe has swallowed the line that, if only treated kindly, those fanatics will become good, law-abiding people. That is an attractive fantasy, but reality refuses to go along. If those European rulers were to look at the record they would see that the fanatics have never changed their goals nor their willingness to use violence to achieve those goals. Their pixie dust is an illusion. Those fanatics believe that they have a divine mandate to impose Sharia law on the world, and they are willing to die to reach that goal. No amount of kind welcoming will change that.

Nor is our U.S. president immune to such magical belief. He wants to admit Islamic “refugees” by the thousands, but offers no way to separate the dangerous potential terrorists from the real refugees. That kind of magical thinking gets people killed.

But why do we have leaders living in Fantasyland? In a democratic system there is an obvious reason: too many voters live in Fantasyland, voters who think government has some magical solution to all our problems. They fail to notice that:

Government has no magical source of goods or services to provide to the people. It only has what it takes from those people.

Government has no source of wisdom beyond that of ordinary people. Imperfect people select government functionaries from among the imperfect people actually available in this imperfect world.

Government has no greater integrity than that of those imperfect people who select other imperfect people to hold power.

Voters must think reality, not fantasy. Our security, our economy, and our freedom depend on it. We must reject the pie in the sky fantasy that many politicians promise. Those promises may sound attractive, but the real world rejects them.

Presidential Elections: The Longest Lasting Consequences

There are many issues for voters to consider in any presidential election. However, the longest-lasting legacy of any president must be among the most important. Most presidential decisions can be changed a few years down the road but there is one exception: Supreme Court Appointments.

The Supreme Court is effectively the last word, accountable to no-one. Five justices form a majority on that court, giving them the closest thing we have in this country to dictatorial power. Indeed, at times they do seem to have dictatorial powers. Their decisions stand, and the voters have no means of changing those decisions.

Voters must consider carefully what kind of justices the next president is likely to appoint. That president will probably appoint at least three new justices. Obama's two appointees, Sotomayor and Kagen, will likely remain on that court for decades, as will those three new justices. If the new appointees are similar to the Obama appointees, that will give them decades of absolute majorities on that court, the ability to impose unchangeable rulings on the people.

So which candidate is most likely to appoint good justices, rather than leftist sycophants? Certainly not either of the democratic candidates. Clinton or Sanders would appoint leftists to that court. Trump? That is essentially unknown, the only hints we have are his history of supporting things like condemnation of private property to give it to other private entities, and federally controlled health care. The probabilities do not look good, it is doubtful that he would appoint defenders of constitutional freedom to any court.

Of course there are always a lot of unknowns in electing a president. However, I believe that the candidate most likely to appoint good justices is Ted Cruz. Of all the candidates, he is most committed to the constitution. Voters must consider that when deciding how to cast their ballots.

Cutting off Your Nose to Spite Your Face

Voters are angry, justifiably so. They gave control of both house and senate to the Republicans on the promise that those elected would do things like stop executive amnesty, funding of Planned Parenthood, stop Obamacare, etc. The Republicans then turned around and acted like Obama sycophants. Their campaign promises were as trustworthy as a Hillary Clinton claim. They betrayed the voters who now want revenge.

Unfortunately, that anger is not a good guide for voters. In their desire to strike back, many of those voters are harming the very causes they support. Let's face it, Donald Trump is unlikely to do any of the things voters supported in 2014. Even his main issue, the promise to build a wall along the border, is in serious doubt. Allegedly, in an off-the-record interview with the New York Times, he said he doesn't really believe what he is saying about stopping illegal entry. The fact that he refuses to have the tape of that interview released leads me to believe that the claim is true, he has no intention of building a wall or otherwise restricting illegal entry to this country.

If we make the mistake of electing Trump, I doubt we will see much of anything different than if we elect Hillary Clinton. Reacting in anger can cause us to jump from the proverbial frying pan into the fire.

Related to the issue of illegal aliens are the job losses and underemployment many families face. That is partly, but not totally, due to illegal aliens taking jobs otherwise available to citizens. Again, reacting in unthinking anger is national suicide. That is reminiscent of the way Hitler took power in Germany. As I wrote in my book, Freedom or Serfdom?:

“How could Hitler get enough voter support to become chancellor? The answer is that the Germans were desperate, and desperate people may grasp at any straw. The Treaty of Versailles imposed onerous reparations on the country. That and other problems devastated the economy. Formerly prosperous families found themselves with little or nothing. As Hayek puts it, “It should never be forgotten that the one decisive factor in the rise of totalitarianism on the Continent, which is yet absent in England and America, is the existence of a large recently dispossessed middle class.”[1]

“As I write this, the American middle class is under siege. Should much of that middle class fall on hard times, that could open the way for a demagogue to take power .”

When I wrote that, I had no idea that Trump, who I consider to be very much a demagogue, would seriously contend for the presidency. I did suspect that another demagogue, Hillary Clinton, would be the democratic candidate but it had not occurred to me that voters in November might face the choice between two such demagogic candidates. I do not want to claim the mantle of prophet, but I'm afraid we might face exactly that. I may vomit in the election booth.

Let us hope that voters will wake up and not let their anger do the voting, rational thinking is much better.

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[1]      Hayek, op cit, p215