One late afternoon I knocked on a door in a small community and was met by a teacher in the local high school. We talked about politics in general and he said it seemed more and more difficult to reach some people with reason and facts. To illustrate his point, he told me of a conversation he had overheard recently, in which two young men were discussing ballistics.
Boy One said that if a bullet hit a glancing blow to a rock or similar object the bullet would speed up. Boy One was sure of that because he could tell by the sound. The other boy was skeptical and suggested they take the question to their physics teacher, which they did. On their return to his classroom the teacher asked what the physics teacher had said. Boy Two related that the physics teacher reminded them that a bullet gets initial velocity from exploding powder and that all forces acting on the bullet after that would tend to slow it down. This is something both boys actually knew already and they agreed that they were satisfied with that answer. But after a moment of hesitation, Boy One, of the speeding bullet theory, then added that he still believed that the bullet speeded up.
Nonsense of course, but in the modern world of politics it seems to be normal to believe something despite the facts. The best we can do is continue to act according to what can be shown to be true, not what we’d like to believe is true.
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