Politics - How does the government make decisions?
Ok. Time to rant a little, as all the news from the liberal side is getting a little annoying. I have a few questions that have been bothering me, so I will put a short response to each one here. Comment away, whether you are in favor or not. Politics is all about the discussion, and views do need to be heard.
If this gets too long, then I may start putting one question per post. That way comments can be separated by topic.
1.) How are our government policies decided?
The short answer is: by lawyers. I think we can all accept that most of the people in government have a background in law, and even throwing out all the bias we have against lawyers from the proliferation of jokes, there is a reasonable amount of significance we can attach to this simple fact. Because they have such a stranglehold on the political process, it is important to understand the effect a high concentration of lawyers can have on the situation.
First, think about what a degree in law really means. Undergraduate classes are fairly similar to many other majors, with a strong coverage of writing, literature, logic and some specific legal introductions. Most of the "training" leading to the transformation into a lawyer comes in graduate (law) school. In this process, the future lawyers are coached in how to gather evidence to support their viewpoint, and then present it in the most effective way possible to win their argument. Please note the distinction here: Step 1 is to choose the viewpoint, Step 2 is to gather evidence supporting only that viewpoint, Step 3 is to gather evidence to counter potential strong points of the other side, and Step 4 is to present the evidence in order to WIN.
Does anyone see a problem with this approach? There is a fundamental flaw to the method that can explain why the government sometimes seems to make dumb decisions. If you are an engineer or scientist, you are probably already appalled, however, in a nutshell, the problem is that the "opinion" is formed BEFORE looking at the evidence. Scientists and engineers inherently understand that the best way to try and get the correct answer is to form a hypothesis that can be correct or incorrect, setup and perform experiments and research to test the hypothesis, then to objectively evaluate the results for an answer.
Do scientists have a biased opinion of what the results "should" be before they start? Of course, if they didn't think that the answer would be positive and useful, then it usually isn't worth wasting the time or money to pursue. However, when the results don't go their way, they do allow themselves to be convinced by an objective evaluation of the evidence.
Now that you understand the difference between the "legal method" and the "scientific method," how does this difference in fundamental approach affect policy decisions? Let's take a look at how policy decisions get made. When a bill is proposed, it is sent to both parts of Congress, and before it reaches the full attention of all the members, it is reviewed and edited by a committee. Because we can never expect our elected officials to have a doctorate degree in every topic, "experts" testify on the current state of knowledge. Since lawyers are in charge of the committees, they give equal time and equal weight to both stances on every issue. Now, if the scientific community has investigated the issue very thoroughly, there may be a consensus (say 85-90%) that agree on one stance. However, this fact isn't always factored into the equation when politicians are hearing the facts. Therefore, a small minority can actually have a larger voice because they are assumed from the beginning to be equal and opposite viewpoints.
Further compounding the problem is how the experts are selected. Since the committee needs experts from both sides, they tend to find the same "fringe" experts more frequently than the scientists who support the majority. Since the committee starts seeing the same guy over and over, from a legal perspective that indicates that he is a greater authority than the other guys. Also, since the presentation of the information is key to the process, someone who appears more often will learn how to best argue their point to capture the attention of the audience.
In order to circumvent some of this process, the National Academy of Science and Engineering was established. This is an honorary body, based in Washington, that consists of a static body of 2000 top scientists and engineers from many disciplines who are appointed for life. The purpose is to provide an objective evaluation of certain technical issues the government is facing. However, the members are not paid, and they are all prominent because they are very busy with successful careers in industrial research, academic research, military research or teaching and consulting. Therefore, the number of actual problems they can tackle in a given year is somewhat limited.
For me, this evaluation of the current process indicates that there is a distinct need for scientists and engineers to be intermixed with lawyers in the political system. Someone needs to be there in order to bring a voice of reason to the process, and someone needs to challenge these witnesses on how their statistics have been manipulated, on how the data was collected, and on how widely spread a particular viewpoint is supported. Our leaders can only make decisions based on the information they receive, so poor information or biased information will sometimes lead to bad decisions.
Think about this problem the next time you vote, and maybe factor a politicians background into your evaluation of him on the issues and on his character.
If this gets too long, then I may start putting one question per post. That way comments can be separated by topic.
1.) How are our government policies decided?
The short answer is: by lawyers. I think we can all accept that most of the people in government have a background in law, and even throwing out all the bias we have against lawyers from the proliferation of jokes, there is a reasonable amount of significance we can attach to this simple fact. Because they have such a stranglehold on the political process, it is important to understand the effect a high concentration of lawyers can have on the situation.
First, think about what a degree in law really means. Undergraduate classes are fairly similar to many other majors, with a strong coverage of writing, literature, logic and some specific legal introductions. Most of the "training" leading to the transformation into a lawyer comes in graduate (law) school. In this process, the future lawyers are coached in how to gather evidence to support their viewpoint, and then present it in the most effective way possible to win their argument. Please note the distinction here: Step 1 is to choose the viewpoint, Step 2 is to gather evidence supporting only that viewpoint, Step 3 is to gather evidence to counter potential strong points of the other side, and Step 4 is to present the evidence in order to WIN.
Does anyone see a problem with this approach? There is a fundamental flaw to the method that can explain why the government sometimes seems to make dumb decisions. If you are an engineer or scientist, you are probably already appalled, however, in a nutshell, the problem is that the "opinion" is formed BEFORE looking at the evidence. Scientists and engineers inherently understand that the best way to try and get the correct answer is to form a hypothesis that can be correct or incorrect, setup and perform experiments and research to test the hypothesis, then to objectively evaluate the results for an answer.
Do scientists have a biased opinion of what the results "should" be before they start? Of course, if they didn't think that the answer would be positive and useful, then it usually isn't worth wasting the time or money to pursue. However, when the results don't go their way, they do allow themselves to be convinced by an objective evaluation of the evidence.
Now that you understand the difference between the "legal method" and the "scientific method," how does this difference in fundamental approach affect policy decisions? Let's take a look at how policy decisions get made. When a bill is proposed, it is sent to both parts of Congress, and before it reaches the full attention of all the members, it is reviewed and edited by a committee. Because we can never expect our elected officials to have a doctorate degree in every topic, "experts" testify on the current state of knowledge. Since lawyers are in charge of the committees, they give equal time and equal weight to both stances on every issue. Now, if the scientific community has investigated the issue very thoroughly, there may be a consensus (say 85-90%) that agree on one stance. However, this fact isn't always factored into the equation when politicians are hearing the facts. Therefore, a small minority can actually have a larger voice because they are assumed from the beginning to be equal and opposite viewpoints.
Further compounding the problem is how the experts are selected. Since the committee needs experts from both sides, they tend to find the same "fringe" experts more frequently than the scientists who support the majority. Since the committee starts seeing the same guy over and over, from a legal perspective that indicates that he is a greater authority than the other guys. Also, since the presentation of the information is key to the process, someone who appears more often will learn how to best argue their point to capture the attention of the audience.
In order to circumvent some of this process, the National Academy of Science and Engineering was established. This is an honorary body, based in Washington, that consists of a static body of 2000 top scientists and engineers from many disciplines who are appointed for life. The purpose is to provide an objective evaluation of certain technical issues the government is facing. However, the members are not paid, and they are all prominent because they are very busy with successful careers in industrial research, academic research, military research or teaching and consulting. Therefore, the number of actual problems they can tackle in a given year is somewhat limited.
For me, this evaluation of the current process indicates that there is a distinct need for scientists and engineers to be intermixed with lawyers in the political system. Someone needs to be there in order to bring a voice of reason to the process, and someone needs to challenge these witnesses on how their statistics have been manipulated, on how the data was collected, and on how widely spread a particular viewpoint is supported. Our leaders can only make decisions based on the information they receive, so poor information or biased information will sometimes lead to bad decisions.
Think about this problem the next time you vote, and maybe factor a politicians background into your evaluation of him on the issues and on his character.