Safe or Out, but a Lot More than Baseball

Say the Yankees are up to bat against the Orioles. Derek Jeter hits a ground ball, and it's one of those plays at first that is just too close to call. Guaranteed that every Yankee fan will say he's safe, and every Orioles fan will say he's out. Of course, that's not surprising. But what's surprising, to me at least, isn't that the fans say that, but that they really believe it.

Now, Jeter beat the throw or he didn't. Yet the people watching that play, see it as they want to see it, not as it actually is.

Obviously, this applies to a lot more than baseball. We see things as we want to see them. Sports, relationships, politics, you name it: anything we can have an opinion on, we're going to bias it, without even knowing. We will swear up and down that we're right, whether we are or not. We are sure that we are right, so obviously the other guys must be lying.

Now I understand how our desires can color our opinions, but actual physical happenings? How does that happen? But if our opinions can make us see a play at first base wrong, just think how they can affect more subjective subjects.

It's no wonder we fight all the time!

Of Scientists and Politicians

 

Chances are you may not remember Johannes Kepler. Or why he's important. Well, he was a mathematician and astronomer back in about 1600. He was trying to figure out what the planetary orbits looked like. In his mind, they had to be circles. Circles were "perfect," and why would God make orbits anything less. See the orbits on the left? They look like circles, don't they? But they're not. They're actually ellipses (ovals) and that really, really upset Kepler. He just knew they had to be circles. He wanted them to be circles. But the data showed they weren't circles. So he threw out all his previous ideas, and basically said "I was wrong."

As Carl Sagan said of Kepler: He accepted the uncomfortable facts; He preferred the hard truth to his dearest delusions. That is the heart of science.

 Now, skip forward about 500 years. And think. When was the last time you heard a politician say "I've examined all the facts. Checked all the data. And I was wrong."  Yeah right.

And therein lies the problem. A politician just won't do that. Instead, he'll make up his mind, and no matter what the facts show, he'll stick to it. He'll criticize a study. Or say the report is biased. Or say that the facts somehow don't apply here. Where is the integrity in that?

In his defense of course, if he actually does change his mind based on evidence, then he'll be branded a flip-flopper who can't stick to his ideals. Or something stupid like that.

Just for one minute think what it would be like if our representatives in government would actually listen to facts, and judge accordingly. First of all, we'd have a lot less bickering, and a lot more getting accomplished. And our laws would actually make sense, because they'd be based on facts, rather than whatever the congressman thinks will get him elected.

Of course there have been scientists who have stonewalled, argued, and lied to keep their ideas sounding good. But by far that is the minority. Most scientists do what they do because they want truth. If only our government leaders wanted that as well.

Scale of Good and Evil

OK, let's say we set up a scale, where 0 is the most evil person ever, and 10 is the best (goodest?) person ever. For Christians, Satan would pretty much be 0 by definition, and Jesus would really kinda have to be 10; He was God afterall. (For any non-Christians, feel free to add your own deities to either end.)

People at the top end are probably hard to come by. Maybe Mother Theresa would get a 9 perhaps. I'm sure there's more, but they're hard to think up. On the other end, it's almost a no-brainer. Hitler is probably the first to come to mind who might get a 1, for instance. You could make cases for Pol Pot, Stalin, and probably a few others.

My question though is this: do these evil people know they're evil? Or are they just misguided. Or maybe we're misjudging them (doubtful though!)  For instance, I'm told that Hitler himself loved puppies and children. How bad could he be? If he were evil, wouldn't he be evil to everybody? Hmmm..... Not sure.

Now in the movies, it's easy. Evil guys KNOW they're evil in the movies. Think of every single James Bond bad guy. He KNEW he was evil, but loved being that way. Even Scar, in Lion King, knew he was a really bad guy.

But in real life, I'm not so sure. For instance, I think I'm a pretty decent guy. I try to live right, set a good example, and I try to always do the right thing. Sounds like I should rate at least above 5. Yet I know there are people who are convinced I'm no higher than a 2.

So anyway, where do you think you rate? I can't imagine any real, flesh and blood person, would ever say "Yeah, I'm about a 1.5 on the evil scale. I pretty much don't ever do anything that one could consider good." No, nobody's going to say that.

Well anyway, where do you think you rate? I wonder if we'd agree.

Little Noticed Words from SOTU

Of the few thousand words from tonight's State of the Union address, these will definitely NOT be the most repeated. Still, they made sense to me:

"When a student walks into a classroom, it should be a place of high expectations, and high performance."

Richard Morgan
rmorgan55@gmail.com

Gerry Rafferty

You know, a few weeks ago, almost nobody noticed when Gerry Rafferty died. Too bad. Back in the late 70's or so, he had a good run of great songs. Most people remember "Stuck in the Middle With You" when he was with Stealers Wheel  (Remember "Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am Stuck in the Middle With You.)

Many also remember "City to City" and "Baker Street" off his big solo album "City to City." But the best song of all is "Whatever's Written in Your Heart" off that same album. Sad, haunting, thought-provoking. Great tune, nice harmonies, and kinda spooky. I've heard he played and recorded the whole album on his own equipment at his mom's house. If so, that's almost as impressive as the songs.

Anyway, here's a video of it. Video's not that great, but listen to the song. 
http://exposureroom.com/members/67rrh/506db7ae93574b6796bcba5ebe21e290/


You did good, Gerry.