In 2015 I’ll vote like a Scientist

I am a scientist. The kind that is yet to invent anything but nonetheless, I was trained as one and therefore think like one. If you ask me, I think everybody should think like a scientist regardless of whether they are scientists or not because science is the only field that relentlessly marches forward and never turns back. Every generation gets born into a world that is more scientifically advanced than the one their parents were born into. Not so for other fields; religion for example is designed not to change. It can accommodate changes no doubt, but its essence and core values are meant to be static. Art is another example. It goes forward and backwards. And for the past few centuries it has been going mostly backwards. We have moved from Leonardo and his angelic depiction of the Last Supper, to Picasso and his gibberish paintings that nobody really understands although many like to flatter themselves by pretending they do. What I am trying to say in essence is that if we want to kick-start this country on a relentless forward march to progress, then we have to start thinking, acting, and voting like scientists.

What has science got to do with voting you may ask, well…this is precisely the purpose of this post. To show you how to vote like a scientist and in the process show you how science could help you make better choices. I’ll do that by telling you what I (a scientist determined to vote like one) will be considering on Election Day in 2015.

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The day will be hot and sunny like other election days before it. I’d wake up very early convinced that after that day, Nigeria will not be the same again. I’ll have a light breakfast and then go to do a preliminary check on my polling station to see if the INEC people have arrived (that would be around 9:30 AM). I’ll return home shortly after to bathe and do other stuff until about 11:30 AM when I’ll leave home again, this time to cast my vote. But before then, knowing the way my mind works, a thousand thoughts would’ve flipped past. What follows are some of those thoughts that would occupy my mind…

 

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Newton’s Law: This is one of the first things they teach in Physics and it’ll be one of the first things I will be considering on Election Day. The law states that a moving body continues in a state of motion until it is compelled by an external force. In other words, if a ball is rolled across a floor, it will continue to roll in the same direction until a force aside from the one driving it, acts on it (like a wall, or the wind, or the friction between the ball and the floor).

Take Nigeria to be that ball and the PDP the force currently driving it. It is no news that things have progressively worsened in the last 14 years that the PDP has been running this country. We are literally on the brink of self-destruction. We are staring Somalia squarely in the face. So according to Newton’s Law, the only thing that can stop our steady march to perdition is when a force different from the one currently driving this country acts. This I think, answers those who think salvation can still be gotten through the PDP by simply replacing Goodluck with Lamido, or Tambuwal, or whoever. The change, like the force that stops a rolling ball, must come from outside of the PDP. The PDP simply has too many vested interests that are too deeply entrenched in its soul to render any leader (no matter how good his intentions) ineffective.

The Uncertainty Principle: This is from the realm of particle physics (quantum theory). Without going into any complicated details, the principle simply talks about how when you know one property of a sub-atomic particle, its other properties become uncertain. If you know its mass then its velocity is uncertain; if you know its velocity, its mass is uncertain. I will be applying this principle thoroughly on election day and I like it a lot because it deals a knockout punch to those annoying and patronizing politicians who cannot put up a simple poster or billboard without adding Muhammadu Buhari’s face.

According to the Uncertainty Principle, if we know one, then the other is automatically uncertain (questionable). Since we know Buhari to be a man of integrity (why else is his image used so indiscriminately), it automatically means the other face on the poster is of questionable integrity. Since we know Buhari to be upright, then the uprightness of the other fellow must be uncertain. The fact that the guy needs to hide behind someone else’s integrity, is proof that he lacks integrity of his own. For that alone I will not vote for such politicians.

The Law of Causality: This is the bedrock of science. It is a very simple concept. It talks about how everything must have been caused by something. That nothing happens in a vacuum. Every cause leads to an effect and when that cause is repeated under the same conditions, it will create the same effect. That is what gives science its character: predictable, measurable, empirical. It is why the world makes sense – if you feel a sharp pain on your cheek, then someone or something must have hit you otherwise you may need to go see a psychiatrist (seriously).

Similarly, if you voted PDP (here you can swap PDP with ANPP, ACN, etc. depending on your location) in 1999 and 2003 and 2007 and 2011 and each time you got the same results from them, then chances are if you vote them in 2015 you will get the exact same results. SAME CAUSES GIVE SAME EFFECTS (that’s the law). The only time this law is violated is when miracles happen. And if a miracle is what you are expecting after 2015, then I think you should stop reading at this point because obviously, this post is not meant for people like you.

Theory of Natural Selection: Another name for this is the theory of evolution. This theory postulates that organisms survive over millions of years (and in the process evolve complex features) based mostly on the kind of choices they make. Organisms that make the right choices – choices that ensure their survival – survive. Those that fail to do that, go extinct. It is that simple.

Let’s bring this closer home and see how it applies to our situation.  In the decade and a half that the PDP has presided at the center, Nigeria has witnessed more bloodshed and destruction than at any other time in her peacetime history. Here I’m not only referring to deaths from insurgencies and communal clashes but also from more mundane causes like road traffic accidents, plane crashes, and armed robberies (armed robbers now hold entire villages hostage for hours).  So according to the theory of Natural Selection, when species are faced with a situation where they have to choose between something that has caused them so much destruction and something else, the species that will ultimately survive are the ones that will go for ‘something else’.

We are here right now (according to this theory) because our ancestors that lived tens of thousands of years ago, consistently made right choices. If in spite of all the troubles this government has caused, you still deem it fit to give your vote to them, then it simply means that you, with all your education and sophistication, are thinking at a level much lower than that of your Neanderthal ancestor. And that’s pathetic don’t you think.

The Pascal Wager: This is not usually taught in schools although it is well known in scientific circles. I particularly like it because it takes care of the apprehensions of a very large class of people who are skeptical of the opposition (I belong to that class by the way). They say things like, ‘how are we sure the opposition will not turn out to be just like the PDP?’ Well the truth of the matter is, we are not sure and that is precisely why I like Pascal’s Wager. It is an argument rooted in probability and game theory (don’t run away pls, there will be no equations, no calculations of any kind – I PROMISE) that was propounded by the renowned French physicist Blaise Pascal. Originally the theory was an attempt to show to his scientist colleagues who were skeptical about the existence of God, that it made more mathematical sense to believe He exists than to not believe. Pascal grouped people into two; those that believe in God and those that do not. He then asks of both groups these two simple questions: “WHAT IF YOU ARE WRONG?” “WHAT IF YOU ARE RIGHT?”

If you believe in God and it turns out you are wrong, all you lose is the reward you were expecting to get i.e. you don’t really lose anything. But if you are right, you get to make heaven – an infinite gain.

If on the other hand you disbelieve in God and it turns out you are wrong, then you face living in hell for ever – an infinite loss. And if you are right, you don’t gain anything because …well, there’s no God to reward you.

So for the first group the possible outcomes are: LOSE NOTHING or GAIN EVERYTHING
For the second group the possible outcomes are: LOSE EVERYTHING or GAIN NOTHING

Going by the above outcomes, it makes no sense at all to consciously choose to be in the 2^nd group because there is nothing to gain and everything to lose.

Now apply this to PDP vs the Opposition: by voting the PDP we get more of what we have been getting since 1999 (corruption, insecurity, fuel price hike, collapsing infrastructure, etc.) i.e. you don’t stand to gain anything. Voting the opposition on the other hand will mean either they turn out to be like the PDP in which case we lose nothing or they will be different in which case we gain something. It is that possibility, that teeny tiny little chance that they would turn out to be different that makes voting them a more sensible option than voting back the PDP.

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So on Election Day in 2015, after collecting my ballot papers from the INEC guys, I’ll make my way to the polling booth and as I stand in front of the ballot box, I’ll think deeply about every single vote – if it doesn’t make scientific sense, then it’s not worth casting.