Kagan ignores Hume's wisdom

Why is it pundits like baseball so much? George Will bores me with his baseball editorials. It boggles the mind's eye to imagine bowtied Georgie shaggin' flies. Robert Kagan, writing in the Post, dusts off his mitt.

Kagan tells us, "We all make a common logical error that cognitive psychologists call the 'availability heuristic.'" Huh?

Fortunately, Kagan tells us "It means making judgments about the future based not on a broad body of historical evidence but on recent, vivid events that skew our perceptions."

Kagan's complaint is that people don't predict the future on a "[broader] body of historical evidence." Like many, Kagan believes history can be predictive of future events if one has enough data to allow a proper judgment to be rendered.

Reality check, Kagan. History is not science.

Over 200 years ago, David Hume taught us "the supposition, that the future resembles the past, is not founded on arguments of any kind, but is derived entirely from habit." (A Treatise of Human Nature)

Fortunately, Kagan taught us something about baseball, but he's taught us nothing about tomorrow.