Thursday, August 25, 2016

A Recurring Frustration


I'm mentioned this before but it keeps coming to mind whenever politicians discuss foreign policy.

You know that taking Action A produced problems. What you cannot know is what problems would have been produced had you not taken Action A. Decisions are taken with the available evidence. That is more of a crystal ball than a history book written by a time traveler who recently returned from the future.

Those who would criticize such decisions should in turn be asked what they would have done had the unpleasant scenarios of another course of action taken place. They should also be asked to describe the level of evidence they would require before taking similar action.

They seldom get such questions.

3 comments:

Dan in Philly said...

Politicians are not interested in truth. They want to persuade.

Anonymous said...

And what if the decision was made based on faulty/non-existent evidence?

Michael Wade said...

I'd like to see where the designation of faulty or nonexistent evidence comes from. We live in a world where the evidence is usually far from conclusive and decisions have to be made based on the best available evidence.

Michael