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Science succeeds by recognizing two conflicting quirks of human thinking:

1  A tendency to oversimplify in the service of confirming wondrous wishes
&
2  Discovery of abstract patterns of Nature that cannot be denied
Self deception
vs
She who must be obeyed

Both quirks lurk about in the shadows of Keith Devlin's "fourth level of human abstraction."
This "fourth level" could be a bridge between scientific reasoning and reasoning about social issues.

Discussions about "political biases" virtually never enter this level of abstraction.
Effective political discussion must recognize this deeper level of thinking.
Science is impossible and pseudoscience dominates in a society blind to such abstractions.
Likewise, effective and compasionate politics is impossible without the deeper, but necessary, insights.

.
.
In the August 15, 2002 issue of The New York Review of Books,
Tony Judt of New York University starts a paragraph with:

"The real threat to America, which the Bush administration has not even begun to comprehend..."

This phrase sounds echos of those many unseen "Eurekas"
among those decades of puzzles from Martin Gardner's
"Mathematical Games" in Scientific American.
The need to comprehend something logical (imperatively so) and abstract (fourth-level)
is what makes Martin Gardner's puzzles (physics, too) "simple but subtle."

A reminder: Usable human knowledge often requires the best
human pattern recognition skills.  The best will be the most abstract.


What kind of concept might some political leaders
"not even begin to comprehend"?

Judt points to the widespread esteem (even to the point of being revered)  that America enjoys in the minds and eyes of non-Americans, because of...?? 

MTV and McDonald's?
no

Enron and Bernnie Ebbers of WorldCom?
of course not

America's awesome military establishment?
Why should they?

America's unparalleld wealth?
Really!?

"American power and influence are actually very fragile, because they rest upon an idea, a unique and irreplaceable myth: that the United States really does stand for a better world and is still the best hope of all who seek it." 

and

"...in the face of American neglect and indifference this myth will fade and 'large proportions of key societies [will] turn against the US and the global values of free trade and free society.'*  This would spell the end of 'the West' as we have understood it for half a century...

...a disaster for everyone."
*Michael J Mazarr "Saved from Ourselves," The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 25, No.2 (Spring 2002).
In his review of Joseph Nye Jr's The Paradox of American Power: Why the World's Only Superpower Can't Go It Alone, Judt paints a picture of a year 2002 US Administration of infant-like solipsism, a collection of high(est)-level decision makers blind to anything beyond certain narrow self-interest defined in the shallowest of simpleminded oversimplifications.  And he documents it:

Reluctant to join international initiatives or agreements
whether on climate warming, biological warfare criminal justice, or women's rights

      Only one of two states that have failed to ratify the 1989 
Convention on Children's Rights.

"Unsigned":
The Rome Treaty establishing an International Criminal Court

Declared itself no longer bound by the Vienna Convention on Law of Treaties

Etc.

Etc.

 

America's founding fathers were deep thinkers.
They designed a democracy that would help average thinkers elect the best thinkers.
What happened...??

"...has not even begun to comprehend..."
 How often is this phrase understood to mean "doesn't agree with me"?  Science has been the discovery of concepts for which "agree with me" cannot possibly be an issue.  When the principle is understood, it is knowledge that guides a person toward successes in the world.  Scientific knowledge has the kind of certainty that we feel when we discover the answer to Martin Gardner's buzz-saw puzzle.  When it is not understood, the answer being sought is usually not even of the right kind.  The actual answer "lies un unsuspected dimensions."
These "dimensions" will be in Devlin's "mathematical" level of abstraction.
You see the deeper abstraction and you succeed.  But if you don't see, you will seem something of a fool to those who do see...furthermore, you don't succeed.
"The opinions are those of the author and not necessarily shared by [the sponsor], but they should be."
Bob Park's disclaimer in his column "What's New."

American democracy was designed by people who were good at seeing the deeper abstractions.  American elections have seen ups and downs in placing that kind of people in government.

The Bush Administration rejected statistical methods for taking the Census.  In doing so, they emanated an "aura of ignorance" clearly detectable to those who do comprehend statistical principles.  The Administration, indeed, was seeing statistics as does a large fraction of the American public for whom they are making a lot of important decisions.  Many, many people play the lotteries with an expectation of possibly getting filthy rich.  When Bob Park suggested that lottery players might as well send their dollars to the American Physical Society, because their odds of winning would be "exactly the same to within eight significant figures," his aura was an aura of understanding. 

The members of the American Physical Society have given us all vast understanding of nature.

The Bush administration avoided emplacing a science advisor amongst themselves for an unconscionably long period.  They frequently advocate ideas which scientific insight shows to be absurd...to a very high level of probability.  Missle defense shield.  Use of the polygraph to get at the truth.  The International Space Station to advance science. What's New carries a steady litany of such silliness that shows what a group of high-level decision makers can emanate when unguided by the abstract patterns of the "fourth-level" of human intellectual skills.

When people democratically elect "leaders" who make important decisions, they must elect people who can see further than they themselves see.  The dangers of electing people who don't even begin to comprehend the complexities of their actions constitute, today, the most terrifying hazards mankind has ever faced.  All three catastrophes which John Platt warned us about seem to be descending upon us as a single–and simplistic–misstep of democracy.
 

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