Generally it is a good that decisions are made with reference to evidence. It is an especially good idea when politicians and regulators are making decisions.
Still Some Crazy Politicians Out There
The world still has it fair share of slightly mad and deranged political leaders and officials. Some rename the months, others spend billions and send troops into war without any clear plans. So it is a good thing that politicians and officials have to provide evidence – and provide the evidence in public – and not make up figures to justify their actions.
Slow is Good
Finding evidence to justify your whims have some good side effects. If the idea is a stupid or a late night whim, finding the evidence will slow you down, and either see reason and drop the idea, or slow you down so much inventing the evidence that you’ll not have the time ti implement hair brained whims.
Bright Young Boys and Girls
People used to pin their hopes on bright your boys and girls out of Harvard armed with MBAs. But, after they ruined several previously solvent firms and countries, the MBA obsession is less public.
In Science We Trust
Recently, some people have pinned their hopes that science will provide the answer. It is alluring. Objective minded experts will look at cold hard laws of nature and pronounce if it right or not.
Uncertainty
But, things are not so simple. Things are by their very nature uncertain, there are whatever you try to do bound to be inaccuracies. You can kid yourself that there won’t be, but you’ll probably land up making far worse mistakes because if it. This Heisenbery Uncertainty Principle helps us to realize that even if we handed over all decisions to scientists, we won’t necessarily find the right decisions.
What To Do
- Be Allowed to make lots of mistakes : You’ll never stop making mistakes, but you can learn from your mistakes.
- We are fallible : Don’t trust people – let alone politicians – who claim to know the perfect solution. Meglomaniac obsessives are rarely right.
- Quick fixes are often bad. Decisions more on whims or through lack of sleep early in the morning are to be avoided. Politicians, regulators and city traders seem to like doing them. The current mess we are in suggests it is not a good way of doing things.