Hashtag Rationalia

[ebacon]

Neil deGrasse Tyson has swizzled up a fun discussion on Twitter. He proposed a virtual country, Rationalia, that has a one line constitution. The fantasy constitution reads, "All policy shall be based on the weight of evidence."

http://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/neil...-of-government

What can go wrong with basing all policy on the weight of evidence?

In my limited experience I foresee one glaring problem with such an oversimplified system. To wit, if policy is based on evidence then the undesirable backlash is a black market on evidence.

Case in point.

One of my earliest debates on the internet was on the subject of land use. I live near Detroit and despise how we waste land. My sparring partner found data that suggested people are happier in Detroit than they are in an area with more structured land use such as Portland, OR. He won our debate IMO.

We had a perfectly rational debate and yet Detroit won over Portland as a good example of land use in that sample. Why?

This stuff is fun to think about.