Obama? McCain? Judgment is the key.

Obama? McCain? Judgment is the key. But what are the pillars of good judgment? For many years I've wondered. Now – seeing too many persons hurt by bad judgments of elected officials – I am goaded to try to connect many disconnected thoughts rattling about in my brain.

Good judgment, for this old physicist, has clear basic pillars: Use the best evidence, with no logical fallacies and with full and clear understanding of all approximations. Use all reliable tools to anticipate consequences of a proposed course, where reliable tools are vetted by appropriate expert bodies such as the National Academy of Sciences.

Often good judgment can't be made with just these basic pillars. What are the options when these pillars do not point to a course sure to succeed? Defer judgment? Roll the dice? Look for a reasonable chance of success with course correction measures built in?

We now have evidence that decision making improves as diversity of council increases. So, good judgment about which of those options to choose and about reasonable chance of success is best made by finding consensus in maximally diverse council.

Judgment can be corrupted by faulty perception, when manipulated by appeal to emotion, when driven by selfish and perverse goals. Using reliable tools to anticipate consequences and finding consensus in maximally diverse council can minimize  this corruption or at least detect it.

What's the best way forward when parties do seek to drive judgments by appeal to emotions such as fear, pity, envy, hatred, pride, greed, ignorance, authority? Attempts to fight about differences arising here lead to zero-sum games with winners and losers and long term resentments, which help appeals to emotions. Here we have a major consensus-finding challenge.

Consensus-finding requires understanding and honoring views of all parties even when their views are contrary to evidence, are based on logical fallacies, are driven by base motives. This is almost contrary to the traditions of party politics. Rarely persons do transcend those traditions to be consensus finders. This is greatness.

Those thriving on division and fighting to dominate will scornfully label a consensus-finder as an elite appeaser. This is base. The greatness of consensus finders is vilified because the character of consensus finders shines a bright light on baseness.

So, when we are deciding which candidate for elective office to support, when we are deciding which parties to support, we should ask about proven ability and commitment to take on major consensus-finding challenges, proven ability and commitment to find consensus via maximally diverse council, proven ability and commitment to hew to basic pillars of good judgment.