Just the facts, please

A widely accepted maxim of good decision-making is not mixing your values and facts. Once you have gathered all your facts, you can use your values to select between them. However, this is why lady justice uses a blindfold when determining the facts. That is the problem with Fox News and CNN. We don’t have different values now but different (so-called) facts. When discussing the world, we need to identify the facts without hopes, fears or fit the world into pre-written stories about how we are angels and those who disagree are stupid or evil. When designing an elevator, you might be afraid your new design is too weak, hoping it is much better. However, you must run tests to determine what its actual capacity is. Then you can use your values, which want you to have a significant safety factor, to make a statement about its maximum load. You wouldn’t start this process by selling the elevator without running a test to ensure its capacity is accurate and that you have a significant safety factor.

It is the same with evidence-based policy. First, we will conduct a process to identify each policy's most likely costs and benefits. Then we will use a separate process to identify and weigh the values and interests of each party within Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and identify to which degree each decision should be made by the most likely overall or specific costs, benefits, and the appropriate level of risk for each decision.