Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson and the case of the uncomfortable election

Watson, without the ability to step out of his internal world, is more vulnerable to the myriad of fallacies and biases lurking in his mind. He is easily persuaded by advertising (he smells food and orders a meal), but Watson is also easier to manipulate when consequences are more serious. Nazi Germans were not a breed of evil people; they were ordinary Watsons, who found themselves in a unique social-economic situation and were unable to transcend their inner world to question their leader’s rhetoric. It requires no effort to pontificate that “This must never happen again”. It is easy because we are not in that social-economic situation of Germany between the two world-wars. But how would we behave if we were in such a situation?

To prevent it from happening again the majority of Watsons must turn into Holmes. This requires effort from all of us.

Watson thinks that he doesn’t have enough information to answer the George-Anna-Paul scenario and he feels comfortable and certain that ‘not enough information’ is the right answer. Holmes, using scientific thinking, looks at all the options and reasons that ‘Yes’, there is a married person looking at an unmarried person (there are only 2 options which both contain a married person looking at an unmarried one).

Watson sees the world through a simplistic intuitive lens. He makes the wrong decision, feels that he is right and is comfortable with his self-affirming bias. He will defend his ‘decision’ against other Watsons, and Holmes. He will only change his mind if Holmes can show him the truth, and even then Watson is inclined to focus on side-issues where he happened to be somewhat correct.

When it is time to vote, it is worth to make the effort to get Holmes in the driver’s seat steering us towards the better decision and to feel a little uncomfortable with our choice. Change never is comfortable.