Thursday, March 3, 2011

What we think vs. What we'd like vs. What is

Courtesy of Discover Magazine's Cosmic Variance:
What does it imply that most Americans think the distribution of wealth is much more even than it really is, and would like it to be more even still? By itself, nothing at all. These are just data — descriptions of the world — and science doesn’t imply morality. The data are just useful to keep in mind when we do think about how a just society should be ordered, and what strategies (“share the pain!”) might be most appropriate when thinking about how to recover from our recent economic pratfall.

"How many comments do you think we’ll get before someone claims that taxation = slavery? I’m guessing five." - Sean Carroll