Tolerances and complex problems

One of my favourite quotations gets a regular airing . . .  indeed much more regular than my blog posts have been recently.

"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."

H. L. Mencken  (1880 to 1956)

Almost everyone laughs at that.  It sounds both incisive and frivolous at the same time.  I expect most people then dismiss it from their minds and would probably be delighted if they hear it again in a year or two without getting any more wisdom from it.

For me, after enjoying it and regularly using it while reviewing technical designs in a complex engineering environment it has taken on a extra layer of meaning.  It should be the motto of all practical engineers.  What most people don't realise is that the art of engineering is to make things that might be a little bit wrong but to ensure that they are right enough to function correctly.

Engineers call this 'tolerancing'.  Proper choice of tolerances in any design is the art of balancing performance against cost.  If you get the design too right you might not be able to afford to build it, or might not have enough time.

This is well illustrated by the old story about how to tell the difference between a scientist and an engineer. 

Stand them in opposing corners of a room, with an attractive member of the opposite sex naked (and presumably rather tolerant and open-minded) in the middle.  Tell them to approach that person by successively halving the distance between themselves and the object of their desire. Then wait.

The first one to leave the room will be the scientist, who has worked out that, in this way, you will never really get there. The engineer, however, has figured out that you will get close enough - for all practical purposes.

Eating well in England

I ate very well in England, both last night and this lunch time.  However, the words of W Somerset Maugham come to mind:

"If you want to eat well in England, eat three breakfasts."

Crimes that the church defends

"I know of no crime that has not been defended by the church, in one form or other. 

The church is not a pioneer; it accepts a new truth, last of all, and only when denial has become useless." 

Robert G. Ingersoll

Now that Cher's alive and well

The demise of Mrs Thatcher last week has resulted in trending of a new hash tag on Twitter.

#nowthatchersdead has caused a small stir among music fans though, and we are relieved to hear that Cher is not dead but that she is still alive and well!

As @rickygervais tweeted:

Some people are in a frenzy over the hashtag #nowthatchersdead. It's "Now Thatcher's dead". Not, "Now that Cher's dead" JustSayin'

Mark Twain on an inconsistent god

Mark Twain on the properties of a god!

Was Einstein an atheist?

"From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist.... I have repeatedly said that in my opinion the idea of a personal God is a childlike one. You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our intellectual understanding of nature and of our being."  -- Albert Einstein

That's reasonably clear then.  He was an atheist but had more important things on his mind!

Opium of the people?

How often do we hear a 'quotation' from Karl Marx

"Religion is the opium of the people"

In actual fact he didn't exactly say that.  He said:

The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower.

Marriage Preparation

Unashamedly stolen from a funny e-mail that I received at least 10 years ago, I couldn't resist sharing this collection.

HOW DO YOU DECIDE WHO TO MARRY?

You got to find somebody who likes the same stuff.  Like, if you like sports, she should like it that you like sports, and she should keep the chips and dip coming. - Alan, age 10

No person really decides before they grow up who they're going to marry. God decides it all way before, and you get to find out later who you're stuck with. - Kirsten, age 10 

WHAT IS THE RIGHT AGE TO GET MARRIED?

Twenty-three is the best age because you know the person FOREVER by then. - Camille, age 10

No age is good to get married at. You got to be a fool to get married. - Freddie, age 6 

HOW CAN A STRANGER TELL IF TWO PEOPLE ARE MARRIED?

You might have to guess, based on whether they seem to be yelling at the same kids. - Derrick, age 8 

WHAT DO YOU THINK YOUR MOM AND DAD HAVE IN COMMON?

Both don't want any more kids. - Lori, age 8 

WHAT DO MOST PEOPLE DO ON A DATE?

Dates are for having fun, and people should use them to get to know each other. Even boys have something to say if you listen long enough. - Lynnette, age 8

On the first date, they just tell each other lies, and that usually gets them interested enough to go for a second date. - Martin, age 10 

WHAT WOULD YOU DO ON A FIRST DATE THAT WAS TURNING SOUR?

I'd run home and play dead. The next day I would call all the newspapers and make sure they wrote about me in all the dead columns. - Craig, age 9 

WHEN IS IT OKAY TO KISS SOMEONE?

When they're rich. - Pam, age 7

The law says you have to be eighteen, so I wouldn't want to mess with that. - Curt, age 7

The rule goes like this: If you kiss someone, then you should marry them and have kids with them. It's the right thing to do. - Howard, age 8 

IS IT BETTER TO BE SINGLE OR MARRIED?

It's better for girls to be single but not for boys. Boys need someone to clean up after them. - Anita, age 9 

HOW WOULD THE WORLD BE DIFFERENT IF PEOPLE DIDN'T GET MARRIED?

There sure would be a lot of kids to explain, wouldn't there? - Kelvin, age 8 

HOW WOULD YOU MAKE A MARRIAGE WORK?

Tell your wife that she looks pretty even if she looks like a truck. - Ricky, age 10

George Bernard Shaw - on cynicism

"The power of accurate observation is commonly
called cynicism by those who have not got it"

Thought for the day!  I will adopt this as a motto for life and for this blog now.

Anti-atheist quotes refuted

Last year, a friend posted these anti-atheist quotations on her blog (which is now inactive) and I wrote a reply.  Having found it again recently, I think it is worth repeating it here, somewhat updated in the light of things that I have learned since then.

Maybe the atheist cannot find God for the same reason a thief cannot find a policeman. -- Author Unknown, [but probably Francis Thomson].

Maybe. But then again at least the thief can see policemen and he avoids them because they are real.  Can you see God?  Really?  Incidentally either this was said in humour or else it was typical of the sort of ridiculous analogy that is so often adopted by people who are afraid of atheists.  To show how meaningless it is, you could just as easily say "Christians can't find the truth the same way that a thief can't find a policeman".  It would make about as much sense.

Humanism or atheism is a wonderful philosophy of life as long as you are big, strong, and between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five. But watch out if you are in a lifeboat and there are others who are younger, bigger, or smarter. -- William Murray

Absolutely not true, and frankly offensive, but it is of course the way that some Christians like to try to put down others by suggesting that charity and altruism only comes from christianity.  For what it is worth, it doesn't.

Atheism is a crutch for those who cannot bear the reality of God. -- Tom Stoppard

So the lack of something can become supportive? Nice rhetoric but nonsense.

The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful, and has nobody to thank.--Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Hardly worth writing a response. But what makes him think that there has to be someone to be thankful to?

If there were no God, there would be no atheists. -- G.K. Chesterton

No no. If there was no concept of god there might be no concept of atheism but we would all be atheists. Chesterton was obviously playing games with words as was his expertise.  Clearly logic was not one of his key strengths.

Atheists express their rage against God although in their view He does not exist. -- C. S. Lewis

Typical C S Lewis nonsensical rhetoric based on ignorance. Do they really express their rage? Most atheists I know are quite calm and not raging at all.  Anyway, how can I express rage against someone who I don't believe in?

Shouldn't atheist have an equal obligation to explain pleasure in a world of randomness. Where does pleasure come from? –- G.K. Chesterton

Pleasure has a clear evolutionary origin.  Obligation fulfilled.

Christianity distilled

This succinct appraisal of the christian faith comes from an article about Atheist Discrimination by Dave Gamble.

Atheist evangelists at the door

The bottom line is that many do truly believe that there exists a supernatural entity that gave birth to itself so that it could kill itself, to appease its anger towards all of us because an ancestor of ours was tricked by a talking snake into eating an apple. To dare to suggest that this is not true, and that there is not one jot of evidence for it is indeed highly offensive to many. Being openly an atheist is a direct challenge, it underlines the fact that the believers have wasted their entire life for a delusion.  Read on, at skeptical-science.com.

I find that those words resonate with those of Bertrand Russell:

“There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths. Almost inevitably some part of him is aware that they are myths and that he believes them only because they are comforting. But he dares not face this thought! Moreover, since he is aware, however dimly, that his opinions are not rational, he becomes furious when they are disputed."  --  Bertrand Russell

Wisdom from an economist? Yes really!

John Maynard Keynes, 1883-1946, was a British economist who overturned the earlier ideas of neoclassical economics and worked to replace them with modern macroeconomics.

We are all doubtful about economists these days and would do well to remember the adage that:


"The economy depends on economists about as much as the weather depends on weather forecasters."


However, surprisingly, Keynes spoke a lot more sense than most of them and here are a few interesting quotations from him.


The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead.  Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is past the ocean is flat again.  -- 1923

Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking. -- 1933

There is no harm in being sometimes wrong — especially if one is promptly found out. -- 1933

If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with banknotes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coal mines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it private enterprise on well tried principals of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again (the right to do so being obtained, of course, by tendering for leases of the note-bearing territory), there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of the repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth also, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is. -- 1935

Newton was not the first of the age of reason. He was the last of the magicians, the last of the Babylonians and Sumerians, the last great mind that looked out on the visible and intellectual world with the same eyes as those who began to build our intellectual inheritance rather less than 10 000 years ago.  -- 1942

If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people on a level with dentists, that would be splendid.  -- 1931

This one seems to tell the secret of Richard Branson's success:

The old saying holds. Owe your banker £1000 and you are at his mercy; owe him £1 million and the position is reversed. -- 1945


and finally, one that I empathise with very strongly (at least the first half):


I work for a Government I despise for ends I think criminal. -- 1917

Random but relevant quotations . . .

What they are relevant to . . .

. . . I leave to your imagination.

But they are relevant to the general theme of Something Surprising.

"The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one." -- George Bernard Shaw

"A celibate clergy is an especially good idea, because it tends to suppress any hereditary propensity toward fanaticism." -- Carl Sagan

"There is not enough love and kindness in the world to give any of it away to imaginary beings." -- Nietzsche

"It will yet be the proud boast of women that they never contributed a line to the Bible." -– George W. Foote

"I don't have to prove that god doesn't exist. However, show me how you would prove Zeus and Ra don't exist, & I'll use your method ." -- Anon

Wise words from Sagan!

A nice lazy afternoon, reading blogging and relaxing!  It gives me chance to find wise words from Carl Sagan:

"The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion and politics, but it is not the path to knowledge; it has no place in the endeavor of science."

Some Mark Twain

Time for another lazy post today!  I can't resist some Mark Twain quotations:

"The most interesting information comes from children for they tell all they know and then stop."

"Heaven for climate.  Hell for companionship."

"Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today."

and finally for now

"Faith is believing what you know ain't so."

Probability taken personally

A rationalist view is that 'luck is just probability taken personally'.

Sadly I can't attribute this as the author has remained somewhat elusive.

A couple of quotations

There have been no anti-religious posts here recently, so these go a little way to make up for that.

"The lion may lay down with the lamb, but the lamb won't get much sleep" - Woody Allan

"Just because you're offended doesn't mean you are right." - Ricky Gervais