Guest Column: Filters and Lenses

I'd like to welcome back Ed Fenstermacher, a friend and classmate of mine from the M.I.T. Class of 1973, about 45 years back, as guest columnist today for his second go-round.  Ed is a former Air Force officer, currently a nuclear engineering consultant, husband, and proud father of three.  Ed can be reached at efenster@alum.mit.edu.

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My Facebook friend Russ put up a post after a recent televised debate, to the effect that he could tell by looking at anyone’s online comments about the debate what the "filters" were, that they were looking through.  I knew just what he meant, and I’m sure you do too.  I read things all the time by people whose reactions are completely predictable -- and frequently hyperbolic.  As an undergraduate at MIT, we called them “flamers.”  They were abundantly present on campus.

But as someone who has worked in optics, both professionally and as a hobby, I know there are many other ways to change the information carried by light -- besides filters.  There are mirrors and prisms.  There are also lenses.  And I believe that, as we look out at the world, the lenses we use can be much more important than the filters.   

Filters remove information, hopefully the irrelevant.  Lenses can bring it into focus.  And it is important to be honest, particularly with ourselves, as to what lenses (and filters) we use.  I tend to look at the universe around me using the filters of mathematics, of science, of my belief in God (and what I believe about God) -- and of the Constitution of the United States.

Mathematics was always my best subject in school, because it was precise, repeatable, and viewed the same way by everyone.  In those days (before I had heard of Gödel), every problem could be solved, or it couldn’t.  If it could be solved, the answer would be the same for all people, in all circumstances, here or across the universe.  If you have ever developed a mathematical model (which I’ve now spent a career doing), you know that the results are only as good as the assumptions and input values.  In some cases (e.g., calculating the trajectory of the New Horizons probe) they can be incredibly accurate.  In other cases, they are woefully bad, when compared to what actually happens. 
This calls into question the underlying assumptions and data ... which brings us to science.

Science is the study of what the universe actually is, as accurately as we can tell, as opposed to what we "think it should be" -- or were taught that it was.  It requires us to take data accurately, to examine it dispassionately, and to report it without the bias of wishful thinking, ego or the sure knowledge that positive results will bring wealth, while negative ones will result in unemployment.  

I know of several cases where people were ordered to change results that upset the people paying for the research, and resigned rather than do so.  In graduate school in the late 1970s, I resigned from a contract with the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency rather than retract the results of an econometric model -- one that predicted that energy use in India and China would increase abruptly around the year 2000.  I was told that the prediction would have undermined President Carter’s nonproliferation ideas, which just happened to include discouraging the use of nuclear energy (if you don’t know how that prediction of mine worked out, check the numbers).

You may or may not believe in God.  I do because of personal experience I won’t share here.  I can say, however, that each particular set of religious beliefs will give the believer a particular lens to bring his views into focus.  I will admit that it is like the blind men and the elephant -- each will view God, His will, and His plan in ways that can differ as much as the tree trunk, the rope, the snake, the wall, and the spear that the blind men in the poem saw the elephant as.  

I think that every believer sees God through a different lens, much as a microscope focusing at different depths of a cell might have different views.  No human can understand an infinite God fully; I think the most we can have is a partial understanding of what God expects of us.  If I can have that and live up to His expectations for me, I’ll be happy with that.

The particular religious lens I use is Lutheranism.  Luther wrote extensively about many things, including the relationship of good government with God.  In his view, we are ruled by both -- our Earthly rulers in the material sense, and by God in terms of our internal governance.  He believed, and I do as well, that the best leaders are those who have Godly values in their hearts, but also are cognizant that not everyone in their domain shares those values, and treats those who share their faith, and those who do not, fairly and impartially.  Representative democracy was in its infancy in England, and practiced nowhere else in Europe, but I’m sure Luther today would say we are all both rulers (as voters) and subjects.   

This brings me to my last lens, the Constitution of the United States.

In my view, the Constitution (as amended, particularly by the Bill of Rights and the Civil War Amendments) is the perfect embodiment of the principles that God wants us to live, more so than has ever been written by man.  The main imperfection is that, despite the hard work of the founders, a variety of politicians have found ways to bend it out of shape to do things that were never intended.   

One obvious one is the writing of regulations by bureaucrats, which essentially usurps congressional responsibility.  A second one, of course, is that Congress has gone well beyond the enumerated powers.  In some cases, this is because technology has brought to the forefront situations the founders never envisioned, such as control of nuclear weapons and electronic invasion of privacy.  Those could be addressed correctly by amending the Constitution as needed as technology changes -- rather than the Federal government assuming uncontrolled power to regulate everything.

So as I evaluate the presidential contenders and their proposed policies, I will use the lens of mathematics to determine if the budgets, tax, and growth numbers make sense, and the lens of science (looking at past performance of similar policies, and determining if the input to the mathematics makes sense).  

 I will look at it through the lens of whether a candidate’s policies will be conducive to citizens of the USA being able to live life as God intended, particularly in terms of maximizing freedom of conscience and freedom of action.  And I will look at it through the lens of adherence to the spirit of the Constitution of the United States, as well as its words.

Once I have the issues in focus, then I can filter out some of the blather.  After all, we do need to cut down the glare sometimes.

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