"Voting is no way to answer technical questions, though it may give pleasure to the voters. This author, a physicist, would hate to see the validity of the theory of relativity put to a vote. If that sounds elitist, it should. It is an unpopular but sound principle that you ought to know something about a subject before you earn the right to express an opinion about it. The schools now teach the opposite—but your view is as “valid” as anyone else’s, no matter how little you know. That not only encourages self-esteem, it rewards sloth."
Harold ("Hal") Warren Lewis was an American Emeritus Professor of Physics and former department chairman at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). He was chairman of the JASON Defense Advisory Group from 1966 to 1973, and was active in US government investigations into safety of nuclear reactors.
"There may be people who know more than you, and can therefore do a better job of predicting the odds. If you can find one to help you out, do so. But steer clear of phoney prophets, like astrologers, palmists, and readers of crystal balls. (We may have lost some readers on that sentence. Polls continue to show that an appalling and disturbing fraction of Americans still believe in that baloney.)"
"The common good is always in conflict with concern for individuals, and it doesn’t help rational decision making to pretend otherwise. Besides, the common good and the common want may themselves have little to do with each other."
"The basic ailment afflicts more than the use of taxes; it affects all matters in which the unaffected or uninformed are the decision makers for all of us."
"The Constitution still leaves apportionment to the politicians most affected by it, in clear conflict with common sense, and congressional salaries are still left in the hands of the beneficiaries, again in clear conflict with common sense. Two hundred years, and no progress."
"Rational decisions are impossible unless you make clear at the outset just what it is that you want to accomplish, and what you want to avoid."
"So the road to a decision involves five steps, each simple enough: list of the actions you can take (a decision is just a choice among possible actions, including the action of taking no action at all); list the reasonably conceivable consequences of each of the various actions, as best you can guess them; assess, as best you can, the chance (or odds, or probability) that any particular consequence will follow from any particular action (this is an issue we need to get into—the one most people gloss over); find a way to express your objectives, how much you wish for (or dread) the various possible consequences; and finally put it all together in such a way that it can lead to a rational decision."