Complexities

One of the most insidious tendencies in human nature is the way we gravitate toward simple answers to complicated questions.

I got started thinking about this because of a paper out of Stanford University that appeared this week in Science Advances, about the role that plumes of Saharan dust play in hurricane intensity and rainfall quantity.  This kind of thing is all done now using computer models, and to say the problem is mathematically complex is a stunning understatement.  The scientists have to try to work out the interactions between blobs of air that can move in three dimensions, that vary in temperature, humidity, pressure, and speed, in relation to dust particles of different sizes, shapes, and compositions, at different altitudes, and see if they can figure out how that will affect the barometric pressure, windspeed, and rainfall of storms once they reach land.

It's why weather prediction is still so difficult in general; weather is an exceedingly complex system.  This accounts for my kneejerk furious reaction when I hear someone say, "I should be a meteorologist, it's the only profession where you can be wrong three-quarters of the time and still get paid!"  (Hurr hurr.)  Or, like I actually heard someone say in a school board budget meeting -- "Why do the science teachers need an expensive weather station?  If I want to know what the weather is, I just look out the damn window."  (Hurr hurr hurr durr.)

[Image is in the Public Domain courtesy of NOAA]

It takes some self-awareness to realize you're pretty much completely ignorant about a topic, and considerable effort to remedy it, which probably explains why so many people like to pretend the world is simple.  So much easier to pick a solution that appeals to you -- especially one that doesn't require you to revise any of your preconceived notions -- and forthwith stop thinking.

Honestly, any time you hear "All we need to do is...", you should be on your guard.

The topic cropped up again a couple of days ago in a post from the wonderful author Lisa Lee Curtis, who took on addressing a meme that's been going around showing a trash-covered street with graffiti on the walls, in an obviously poor neighborhood, and the caption, "Democrats want us to believe they can clean up the environment, yet they can't even clean up their own district and streets."  Lisa does a brilliant takedown of the claim and the mindset behind it, and you should read it in its entirety (you can find it at the link provided), but one bit in particular stood out: "Democrats didn't do this.  Greed did this and continues to do this.  This isn't a partisan crisis, this is a human crisis, and you're playing armchair quarterback to something that isn't a fucking game."

But it's appealing to land on a simple solution, isn't it?  Whatever the issue is, find a one-liner of an answer and call it good.  It's the Democrats' fault.  It's the Republicans' fault.  It's the fault of irresponsible young people.  It's the fault of hidebound, conservative older people.  It's the fault of (fill in the blank): Black people, Muslims, Jews, atheists, the poor, LGBTQ+ people... whoever your favorite scapegoat is.

You know what?  It's time to grow up and stop being so damn lazy.  The world is full of complexities, which might suck, but last I checked, reality doesn't care if you think it sucks.  Learn about all sides of the issue, not just the one that comes from your preferred partisan news source, before you form an opinion.

And look, it's okay not to have an opinion about some things.  It's perfectly all right to say, "I just don't know enough about this topic that anything I could say about it would be relevant."  Work to learn about what's going on in the world, do your best to understand, but when something is truly beyond you -- like the mathematics of meteorological forecasting is for me -- then have a little humility and admit that you don't know enough to weigh in.

Oh, and for cryin' in the sink, don't spout off about subjects where you're completely ignorant and can't be bothered to learn.  There's a name for willful ignorance, you know.

It's called "stupidity."

Keep in mind the quote from H. L. Mencken: "Explanations exist; they have existed for all time.  There is always an easy solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong."

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