by Sanford Aranoff

Created on: February 24, 2011   Last Updated: February 26, 2011

Things going on in the political debates are very strange. However, these paradoxical things put together paint a very disturbing picture, regardless who wins the election. Rational people today try to understand things based upon rational thinking, which is logical thinking based upon accepted assumptions, and realizing that all thinking and all knowledge is only partial and probabilistic. Science is based upon arbitrary self-consistent assumptions verified by experiment and observation. All such verifications are based upon statistical probabilities. The idea of an absolute truth is impossible. For one thing, no logical system can be complete, as Kurt Gödel proved a century ago. Secondly, no experiment or observation can be perfectly accurate. The rational person always has uncertainty and doubts about everything.

The problem is that religious education and indoctrination are favorable to the idea of absolute truth. Religion is fine, as long as we do not accept teaching that imply absolute truth, for such teachings are illogical and harmful to society. We must not fear speaking out against false ideas. Let us be courageous in our efforts, and, to quote Sen. McCain, let us fight for what is right.

Note: I wrote this in 11/08.

It is not only religion, but also politics, where the irrational dangers lie. Any person who fully supports a certain candidate is not being logical. We must always have doubts, and be uncertain to whom to vote for. There are always excellent logical reasons for voting for the other person. A decision to vote for a certain candidate can only be a decision based upon probabilities.

As an analogy, consider a decision to buy a stock. We all know that we can never have full confidence that an investment will be good, for we may lose money with the investment. We are reminded to this in all printed material from the investment companies. All that we can say is that we think that the stock probably will turn out to be a good investment.

The same is with medical decisions. A doctor can only say that a certain treatment will probably have a beneficial effect. Too often, patients get angry with the doctor when the treatment does not work, and then vow to see a different doctor. Instead of blaming the doctor, patients need to understand the conceptual idea of statistics, and to understand that what actually turns out may in fact be very different from that which was promised. This is the reality of science. The only justifications for changing

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