“Counterfactuals may be effective for political posturing, dramatic effect, or peddling outlandish pseudoscientific ideas, but they are not useful in advancing public discourse about race, gun violence, law enforcement, the criminal justice system, or any of the myriad issues our society faces.”
Rene Luis Alvarez
I could not disagree with this idea more. My co-blogger, a historian, argues for an empirically driven examination of the past as a guide for how we should construct policy for the future. I agree that looking at data and past events can help us avoid pitfalls and emulate ideas that have been proven to work; However, sometimes the ideas that we use are adopted and held on to because of tradition or politics, and may also have roots in pseudo-science.
A recent example of someone adhering to unsupported ideas in the creation of policy is Jason Richwine, the Harvard PhD who argued in his dissertation that Latinos are genetically intellectually inferior and thus are not worth investing in or even admitting into the country. The basis of his argument, scores on IQ tests, has long been called into question as true measures of intelligence. Such empiricism and “fact-based” arguments have been around for years and they have been shown to be of only limited validity for years. Even a member of Richwine’s dissertation committee thought so. George Borjas regarding his student's focus stated , "I don't find the IQ academic work all that interesting. Economic outcomes and IQ are only weakly related, and IQ only measures one kind of ability. I've been lucky to have met many high-IQ people in academia who are total losers, and many smart, but not super-smart people, who are incredibly successful because of persistence, motivation, etc. So I just think that, on the whole, the focus on IQ is a bit misguided.”
But we hang on to these failed ideas from the past, nonetheless. As Albert Einstein stated, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” But, to be more accurate, the results were the ones that xenophobes and supremacists desire—putting down minority groups and legally and culturally making it acceptable to do so. Many apologists for George Zimmerman have used “facts” to show that we really should profile African Americans given their higher incarceration rates, higher crime rates, and higher crime rates against whites compared to the rate of violence against blacks that whites commit. These are all facts, but they fail to entertain the world of possibilities. The problem is that African-Americans are seen as criminals and the perceived solution is that African-Americans should be treated as criminals. It is this logic that shows a real lack of imagination and empathy-two key reasons to use, “what if?” questions.
Sir Ken Robinson, an internationally recognized scholar and educational advisor who promotes creativity, suggests that imagination and empathy are inextricably linked. By asking “what if?” questions, we place ourselves in the shoes of others, we imagine innovative solutions to deeply entrenched problems, and we have fun while doing it.
An article in The Atlantic points to the very idea of using creativity to encourage engagement and joy in learning. The article describes The Future Project, an organization that aims to encourage creative thinking and imagination in children. They argue that this is desperately needed given that we have become so limited in the way we teach children to adhere to standardized measures of their performance.
Daniel Pink, a writer who focuses on leadership and productivity in business, has argued that by giving people freedom and space to think and imagine, that they will actually become more efficient than if they were given incentives or punishments. He presents compelling evidence from social psychology and behavioral economics to show that this is true.
So, having time to think, just like a history professor, or a blogger, or a journalist might, is really a great thing. That is where we have the potential to create the type of world that we really would like to live in. As Robert Kennedy stated, “There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”
And to the question of “why not?” I would definitely add, “what if?”
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