Nature Cannot Be Fooled

(Sunday Book Club)

My Input:

In 1986, the Challenger shuttle broke apart just 73 seconds after liftoff, claiming the lives of all seven crew members. Nobel physicist Richard Feynman was appointed to investigate the disaster.

Feynman was laser-focused on nothing but the truth. Through a series of simple yet revealing experiments, he exposed NASA's fatally flawed decision-making process that prioritized launch schedules over safety concerns. This was his concluding remark: "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled." 

But, what about human nature? Let's face it. We humans have a knack for deceiving each other. In the former Soviet Union, for example, labor relationships were summed up as follows: "They pretend to pay us and we pretend to work."  Mutual deception becomes a way of life, when and where "the masses" have no say.

In places where you and I can vote a government in or out, liars' pants like Nixon's would be on fire sooner or later. Here, it may be apt to quote Abraham Lincoln's words of wisdom: “You can fool all of the people some of the time; you can fool some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time.” Honest Abe was brutally honest.

Nature, and only nature, is never a fool.

Author: renqiulan