since we didn’t take steps to insure that government leaders eliminated the threat? And since these are uncomfortable ruminations—that our own inattention and inaction may have put us and our loved ones in danger—there is a natural, if maladaptive, tendency to reject the whole business. It will need much better evidence, we say, before we can take it seriously. There is a temptation to minimize, dismiss, forget. Psychiatrists are fully aware of this temptation. They call it “denial.” As the lyrics of an old rock song go: “Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.”
—
The stories of Croesus and Cassandra represent the two extremes of policy response to predictions of deadly peril—Croesus himself representing one pole of credulous, uncritical acceptance (usually of the assurance that all is well), propelled by greed or other character flaws; and the Greek and Trojan response to Cassandra representing the pole of stolid, immobile rejection of the possibility of danger. The job of the policymaker is to steer a prudent course between these two shoals.
Suppose a group of scientists claims that a major environmental catastrophe is looming. Suppose further that what is required to prevent or mitigate the catastrophe is expensive: expensive in fiscal and intellectual resources, but also in challenging our way of thinking—that is, politically expensive. At what point do the policymakers have to take the scientific prophets seriously? There are ways to assess the validity of the modern prophecies—because in the methods of science, there is an error-correcting procedure, a set of rules that have repeatedly worked well, sometimes called the scientific method. There are a number of tenets (I’ve outlined some of them in my book
The Demon-Haunted World
)
:
Arguments from authority carry little weight (“Because I said so” isn’t good enough); quantitative prediction is an extremely good way to sift useful ideas from nonsense; the methods of analysis must yield other results fully consistent with what else we know about the Universe; vigorous debate is a healthy sign; the same conclusions have to be drawn independently by competent competing scientific groups for an idea to be taken seriously; and so on. There are ways for policymakers to decide, to find a safe middle path between precipitate action and impassivity. It takes some emotional discipline, though, and most of all an aware and scientifically literate citizenry—able to judge for themselves how dire the dangers are.
CHAPTER 10
A PIECE OF THE SKY
IS MISSING
[T]his goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE ,
Hamlet
, II, ii, 308 (1600–1601)
I ’d always wanted a toy electric train. But it wasn’t until I was 10 that my parents could afford to buy me one. What they got me, secondhand but in good condition, wasn’t one of those bantamweight, finger-long, miniature scale models you see today, but a real clunker. The locomotive alone must have weighed five pounds. There was also a coal tender, a passenger car, and a caboose. The all-metal interlocking tracks came in three varieties: straight, curved, and one beautifully crossed mutation that permitted the construction of a figure-eight railway. I saved up to buya green plastic tunnel, so I could see the engine, its headlight dispelling the darkness, triumphantly chugging through.
My memories of those happy times are suffused with a smell—not unpleasant, faintly sweet, and always emanating from the transformer, a big black metal box with a sliding red lever that controlled the speed of the train. If you had asked me to describe its function, I suppose I would have said that it converted the kind of electricity in the walls of our apartment to the kind
—
The stories of Croesus and Cassandra represent the two extremes of policy response to predictions of deadly peril—Croesus himself representing one pole of credulous, uncritical acceptance (usually of the assurance that all is well), propelled by greed or other character flaws; and the Greek and Trojan response to Cassandra representing the pole of stolid, immobile rejection of the possibility of danger. The job of the policymaker is to steer a prudent course between these two shoals.
Suppose a group of scientists claims that a major environmental catastrophe is looming. Suppose further that what is required to prevent or mitigate the catastrophe is expensive: expensive in fiscal and intellectual resources, but also in challenging our way of thinking—that is, politically expensive. At what point do the policymakers have to take the scientific prophets seriously? There are ways to assess the validity of the modern prophecies—because in the methods of science, there is an error-correcting procedure, a set of rules that have repeatedly worked well, sometimes called the scientific method. There are a number of tenets (I’ve outlined some of them in my book
The Demon-Haunted World
)
:
Arguments from authority carry little weight (“Because I said so” isn’t good enough); quantitative prediction is an extremely good way to sift useful ideas from nonsense; the methods of analysis must yield other results fully consistent with what else we know about the Universe; vigorous debate is a healthy sign; the same conclusions have to be drawn independently by competent competing scientific groups for an idea to be taken seriously; and so on. There are ways for policymakers to decide, to find a safe middle path between precipitate action and impassivity. It takes some emotional discipline, though, and most of all an aware and scientifically literate citizenry—able to judge for themselves how dire the dangers are.
CHAPTER 10
A PIECE OF THE SKY
IS MISSING
[T]his goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE ,
Hamlet
, II, ii, 308 (1600–1601)
I ’d always wanted a toy electric train. But it wasn’t until I was 10 that my parents could afford to buy me one. What they got me, secondhand but in good condition, wasn’t one of those bantamweight, finger-long, miniature scale models you see today, but a real clunker. The locomotive alone must have weighed five pounds. There was also a coal tender, a passenger car, and a caboose. The all-metal interlocking tracks came in three varieties: straight, curved, and one beautifully crossed mutation that permitted the construction of a figure-eight railway. I saved up to buya green plastic tunnel, so I could see the engine, its headlight dispelling the darkness, triumphantly chugging through.
My memories of those happy times are suffused with a smell—not unpleasant, faintly sweet, and always emanating from the transformer, a big black metal box with a sliding red lever that controlled the speed of the train. If you had asked me to describe its function, I suppose I would have said that it converted the kind of electricity in the walls of our apartment to the kind
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