EVERY DECISION IS A THEORY

Good decision-making is the fundamental life skill at every level. It applies everywhere. It applies in our personal and social lives. It applies in our professional lives. It applies in academia and science.

The process of good decision-making is exactly the same as devising and testing a theory in science and academia and science. Every conscious decision that we have actually thought about is a theory that we will test. We do the very best with the information and understanding that we have of the situation and predict outcomes for the options in front of us in order to choose what to do.

The stakes are high. We are going to stake our wellbeing, even our lives on those decisions. They have better be right first time or we are in trouble. Like in academia and science, we must be realistic and objective rather than basing our decisions on the fantasy of subjectivity and wishful thinking.

This is what we are learning in school. It is one of the fundamental purposes of compulsory education in our society, to prepare us for a life of good decision making. It is the culture of academia and science that we are learning and the learning the culture of academia and science, becoming indoctrinated in it, is the tool to make intelligent, informed and rational decision making second nature.

Theories and decisions are inseparable concepts in reality. Science and academia are also the source of those theories on which we are going to base our life decisions. Our life should be managed and dictated by the application of the theories of academia and science.

The rules of good decision making are the same in all forms of life. They are the same as the founding laws of good academic and scientific practice. We need objectivity and rationality as laid down in the most basic rules of formal logic. We need to question and to know. We need the genius and inspiration that is so prized in academia and science.