An airplane is a flying compromise. Performance gained in one area almost always means a loss of performance in another. Three primary considerations in an aircraft’s design are its speed, cabin room, and fuel burn. You can’t increase one of these aspects of performance without decreasing one of the others. Want your airplane to go a fast but don’t want to increase the fuel burn? Get ready for a cramped cabin! Want to go fast and have plenty of room? Be prepared to burn a lot more fuel. Don’t have the money for all the fuel but still want to be comfortable? I hope you’ve got time, because you are going to be going slow!

The Mooney M20, Beechcraft Bonanza, and Cessna 182 are examples of extremely successful designs that all chose to sacrifice a different aspect of performance. The Mooney sacrificed a spacious cabin, the Bonanza sacrificed a low fuel burn, and the Cessna sacrificed a high cruising speed. In order to create these legendary airframes, each manufacturer went into the design process with the full acknowledgment of the trade-offs built into each one of the thousands of decisions that would become the aircraft.

Living life, in many ways, is like designing an airplane–compromises everywhere! Time, health, and money are three aspects of life where compromises have to be made. Kids usually have time and health, but little money to make their dreams a reality. Middle-aged adults with financially successful careers typically have good health and plenty of money, but insufficient time to enjoy it. When these folks get old, they have time and money, but often don’t have the health to enjoy the experiences that their wealth can afford. The book Die with Zero does an excellent job of pointing out how many of us live our lives without realizing the compromises we are making each day. By ignoring the existence of the compromises inherent in many decisions, we often make sub-optimal life choices. Good life decisions cannot be made without being aware that getting something in one area often means losing something in another. If the aircraft engineer didn’t understand this, his design would not have a clear purpose. It would not have the right compromises necessary to create the desired end product. Our lives, like the airplane, will lack purpose if we make decisions without understanding the underlying compromises. Let’s not fall into the trap of drifting through life. Rather, let’s choose to live by making the tough decisions necessary to create a life evident of purpose.

I don’t think I’ve heard a phrase more abused than “follow the science.” As COVID-19 and its related policies ravage the world, many disillusioned people give the unsolicited advice to “follow the science.” I ignore the advice because it’s rooted in ignorance.

“Follow the science” is a meaningless phrase. It is meaningless because science is descriptive, not prescriptive. Science can tell you that smoking cigarettes has negative effects on your cardiovascular health. Science cannot tell you that you should not smoke. The decision to smoke or not to smoke requires a value judgment. How much do you value your physical health? How much do you value taking a drag off of a cigarette? How bad does it feel to stop smoking? What is your current physical health? How old are you? Do you enjoy smoking with your friends? What is your occupation? How much money do you make? Two people could have perfect agreement with the scientific conclusion that smoking is bad for your health. Those same two people could act rationally with this information and reach two different courses of action. One to smoke, the other to abstain.

It is important to realize that a scientific conclusion does not directly yield a policy recommendation. Science does not know your values and therefore cannot tell you how to act. Science does not tell you to wear a mask–politicians do.

Many people are not aware that an assumption of values must take place in order for a scientific conclusion to take the form of a policy recommendation. Because of this misunderstanding, people tend to believe that if you disagree with a policy, you must necessarily deny the science that informed that policy. Sometimes this is the case, but not always. For example, two people can agree that global warming is man-made and poses a serious threat to mankind. From this information, one might make the conclusion that the government should create and enforce strict environmental regulations to drastically reduce the production of CO2. The other might conclude that these restrictions would harm the economy to a point that would create more of a disaster than the one trying to be avoided.

Remember, someone disagreeing with your politics doesn’t necessarily mean they disagree on the science. Keep this in mind before disparaging others who might not share your values. And please, don’t tell anyone to “follow the science.”