Are their mistakes forcing Democrats to become political positivists? Probably not, because their adherence to ideas seems, in the face of all that is contradictory, to be unshakeable. But what if…?
A Fundamental Question
Do you find interesting the reaction of Democrat Mayor Adams as he faces growing crowds of illegal immigrants, now draining billions of dollars from NYC’s annual budget? Are the numbers becoming the message that will change his and other Democrats’ minds? The numbers, you say?
Positivism in Physics as the Analog
From the rise of “scientific inquiry” in ancient Greece to the Renaissance, most “science” wasn’t what we moderns consider to be “science.” It was largely metaphysics based on concerns about “the nature of” or “the source of” concepts like force, mass, and motion. Before ancient Greeks and Romans, as far as we know, most explanations of natural phenomena rested in myth and religion. True, there were exceptions. Archimedes comes to mind, and so do his predecessors Pythagoras and Euclid. But then the approach to understanding changed—thank you, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, and others—to mathematical ways that describe and explain natural phenomena. As Menas Kafatos and Robert Nadeau explain in The Conscious Universe: Part and Whole in Modern Physical Theory, “a number of nineteenth century physicists and mathematicians …[concluded] that true, genuine, and certain knowledge in physics is revealed in the mathematical description and that all metaphysical concerns should be excluded in both principle and in practice” (18).* That conclusion is what has become known as Newtonian physics and sometimes even “classical” or deterministic physics as an acknowledgement that effects have causes, clearly defined causes.
The new approach made sense because experiments and inventions seemed to operate on mathematical principles. Think force applied, motion produced, for example. This development in how people “did science” prevailed until the goofy quantum world was discovered, that is, the time when observer and observed could no longer be separated. But there’s no denying that Newtonian physics produced explanations and measurable results: Thus the physics of cars and banked curves on highways, of rockets lifting off, and of birds falling from the sky.” Yes, the numbers revealed the secrets that those earlier explanations failed to reveal. Motion, Mr. Aristotle, isn’t an inherent component of a rock or baseball. Force, some kind of force is necessary , and that force is quantifiable: It’s all numbers, numbers, well math, really…
Physics before and even now during the era of quantum mechanics allows us to invent engines, heat pumps, and roller coasters with the confidence that our results will be consistent and workable. We don’t need the why as much as we need the how. As Kafatos and Nadeau put it, “This view, which came to be known as positivism, stipulates that [in Ernest Rutherford’s words] ‘true, genuine, and certain knowledge in physics is revealed in the mathematical description, and that all metaphysical concerns should be excluded in both principle and in practice’” (18).
Public Policies without the Numbers Deny the Realities That Numbers Reveal
So, here we are, centuries after Galileo, using “feelings” and “metaphysics” to make public policies that affect millions of people—like those in New York City and Chicago, and Washington, D.C., all “sanctuary cities” and all now with mayors complaining about the product of their beliefs and social philosophies. Those Democrat leaders invented their problems on the basis of metaphysics and not on the basis of mathematical descriptions. If they had only run the numbers…
But in their arrogance, they relied on belief and on impractical theory with no regard for the way the world really works in the sense of physics and invention. In their effort to rule by virtue signaling and socialist policies led by the Far Left, they have uncorked Pandora’s bottle (Yes, the ancient tale involves a bottle and not a box).
Sure, Temper the Positivism with a Little Metaphysics, but…
Is it heartless to say that the numbers matter? Is it unrealistic to say that the “force” moving millions toward the American border doesn’t lie within the migrants. It’s an outside force, one applied by the Biden Administration and sanctuary cities that pulls in migrants the way iron filings move toward a magnet or balls fall toward the center of gravity.
There were ways to thwart the current migrant crisis affecting the cities. But total open-door policies were not among them. And offers of free housing, education, food, shelter, transportation, and even phones only make the numbers punish the legal residents and taxpaying citizens—now to the tune in NYC of billions of bucks per year in addition to the displacement of residents and tourists, and increased crime.
The sanctuary cities and the border are now overwhelmed with migrants. Who would have guessed? Maybe someone with a Newtonian mindset, someone who could crunch numbers without relying on virtue signaling or unproven hypotheses. But the Left left the door open providing little choice right now as the masses crush toward and over the border. Migrants have crowded into NYC and other sanctuary cities. Now there’s little choice other than to deal with the numbers and to care for them as promised. Sure, it’s humane, but it still has its detrimental costs.
The Left could use some political positivism. They could still keep their hearts, but they need to consider what their minds objectively tell them. And mind, not heart, runs numbers, sees cause and effect, and makes predictions based on commonsense and previous experiments. Heart—even the “heart” or emotions that derived from hatred of the Right and Trump to open the border as a “we’re better than you” policy—is incapable of practicality, of real scientific thinking grounded in quantities. The quality that the Left thinks it has provided has been overwhelmed by demonstrable quantities.
* New York. 1990, Springer-Verlag.
A Fundamental Question
Do you find interesting the reaction of Democrat Mayor Adams as he faces growing crowds of illegal immigrants, now draining billions of dollars from NYC’s annual budget? Are the numbers becoming the message that will change his and other Democrats’ minds? The numbers, you say?
Positivism in Physics as the Analog
From the rise of “scientific inquiry” in ancient Greece to the Renaissance, most “science” wasn’t what we moderns consider to be “science.” It was largely metaphysics based on concerns about “the nature of” or “the source of” concepts like force, mass, and motion. Before ancient Greeks and Romans, as far as we know, most explanations of natural phenomena rested in myth and religion. True, there were exceptions. Archimedes comes to mind, and so do his predecessors Pythagoras and Euclid. But then the approach to understanding changed—thank you, Galileo, Kepler, Newton, and others—to mathematical ways that describe and explain natural phenomena. As Menas Kafatos and Robert Nadeau explain in The Conscious Universe: Part and Whole in Modern Physical Theory, “a number of nineteenth century physicists and mathematicians …[concluded] that true, genuine, and certain knowledge in physics is revealed in the mathematical description and that all metaphysical concerns should be excluded in both principle and in practice” (18).* That conclusion is what has become known as Newtonian physics and sometimes even “classical” or deterministic physics as an acknowledgement that effects have causes, clearly defined causes.
The new approach made sense because experiments and inventions seemed to operate on mathematical principles. Think force applied, motion produced, for example. This development in how people “did science” prevailed until the goofy quantum world was discovered, that is, the time when observer and observed could no longer be separated. But there’s no denying that Newtonian physics produced explanations and measurable results: Thus the physics of cars and banked curves on highways, of rockets lifting off, and of birds falling from the sky.” Yes, the numbers revealed the secrets that those earlier explanations failed to reveal. Motion, Mr. Aristotle, isn’t an inherent component of a rock or baseball. Force, some kind of force is necessary , and that force is quantifiable: It’s all numbers, numbers, well math, really…
Physics before and even now during the era of quantum mechanics allows us to invent engines, heat pumps, and roller coasters with the confidence that our results will be consistent and workable. We don’t need the why as much as we need the how. As Kafatos and Nadeau put it, “This view, which came to be known as positivism, stipulates that [in Ernest Rutherford’s words] ‘true, genuine, and certain knowledge in physics is revealed in the mathematical description, and that all metaphysical concerns should be excluded in both principle and in practice’” (18).
Public Policies without the Numbers Deny the Realities That Numbers Reveal
So, here we are, centuries after Galileo, using “feelings” and “metaphysics” to make public policies that affect millions of people—like those in New York City and Chicago, and Washington, D.C., all “sanctuary cities” and all now with mayors complaining about the product of their beliefs and social philosophies. Those Democrat leaders invented their problems on the basis of metaphysics and not on the basis of mathematical descriptions. If they had only run the numbers…
But in their arrogance, they relied on belief and on impractical theory with no regard for the way the world really works in the sense of physics and invention. In their effort to rule by virtue signaling and socialist policies led by the Far Left, they have uncorked Pandora’s bottle (Yes, the ancient tale involves a bottle and not a box).
Sure, Temper the Positivism with a Little Metaphysics, but…
Is it heartless to say that the numbers matter? Is it unrealistic to say that the “force” moving millions toward the American border doesn’t lie within the migrants. It’s an outside force, one applied by the Biden Administration and sanctuary cities that pulls in migrants the way iron filings move toward a magnet or balls fall toward the center of gravity.
There were ways to thwart the current migrant crisis affecting the cities. But total open-door policies were not among them. And offers of free housing, education, food, shelter, transportation, and even phones only make the numbers punish the legal residents and taxpaying citizens—now to the tune in NYC of billions of bucks per year in addition to the displacement of residents and tourists, and increased crime.
The sanctuary cities and the border are now overwhelmed with migrants. Who would have guessed? Maybe someone with a Newtonian mindset, someone who could crunch numbers without relying on virtue signaling or unproven hypotheses. But the Left left the door open providing little choice right now as the masses crush toward and over the border. Migrants have crowded into NYC and other sanctuary cities. Now there’s little choice other than to deal with the numbers and to care for them as promised. Sure, it’s humane, but it still has its detrimental costs.
The Left could use some political positivism. They could still keep their hearts, but they need to consider what their minds objectively tell them. And mind, not heart, runs numbers, sees cause and effect, and makes predictions based on commonsense and previous experiments. Heart—even the “heart” or emotions that derived from hatred of the Right and Trump to open the border as a “we’re better than you” policy—is incapable of practicality, of real scientific thinking grounded in quantities. The quality that the Left thinks it has provided has been overwhelmed by demonstrable quantities.
* New York. 1990, Springer-Verlag.
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