The Power of Logical Thinking

The Power of Logical Thinking, 1996, by Marilyn vos Savant – one of my favorite books.

Thinking logically isn’t all that hard, but it requires discipline.

It’s the opposite of “shooting from the hip” – just saying the first thing that comes into your mind.  It’s common sense, but it’s more than that.

Common sense is being smart enough not to touch a hot iron or drink spoiled milk. 

Logical thinking, to me, means first having a grasp of what you’re talk about, or the talking points, if it’s something political.  It also means listening to both sides of an issue – especially those you tend to disagree with – and carefully evaluating every argument.

Logical thinking is free of emotion and biases, and considers only what makes sense – and what doesn’t.  It means being flexible when parameters change as they often do.  And it carries with it the ability to communicate why the conclusion you’ve reached is better than all the others.

AUDIO: Random Samplings of a Logical Mind (to come)

Logic as a way of life.  And talk radio.

I adopted logic as my brand in 1995 when I began my first run as a talk show host on KTEM.  I wanted a mission statement that actually said something — like Fox’s old (and still great) “We Report; You decide.”  They even glommed onto an even better slogan that was one word shorter: “Fair and Balanced.”  Those slogans locked in the “unbiased” position or brand for Fox News.  Unfortunately, they abandoned that position in favor of “America is Watching,” which says nothing.  Oh, well.

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I didn’t know anything about Fox News in 1995, but I knew practically everything about Star Trek.  The First Officer of the starship Enterprise was a pointy-eared alien from Vulcan whose mother was from Earth.  Vulcans, as you may know, eschew emotion and live their lives around logic.  I was impressed.

Then came a woman said to be the human with the highest IQ.  Her name was Marilyn vos Savant, and she had a column in the now-defunct PARADE MAGAZINE, and wrote a book entitled The Power of Logical Thinking.  I’m not sure, but I may have fallen in love with her when I read that book.  I sent her a letter once, and actually got a personal reply.

Based on these two influences in my life, I chose logic as my brand.  My long-form mission statement read:

Taking the vital issues of the day, stripping them of their emotion, and analyzing them with logic aforethought.

Translation:  I pledge to know what the hell I’m talking about.  I will remove the political bullshit and I will you what it really means.  I also had and still have a short form of that.  Just two words:

Be Logical

There’s a history behind that, too.  I had been in the advertising business, and a Shakespearian-trained actor in the Nashville area called Jim Varney had been doing syndicated TV commercials all across the country as “Ernest P. Worrell.”  My agency hired him to do three commercials for an automotive dealer group that we represented.  Varney began each ad speaking to an unseen neighbor: “Hey Vern!”

Naturally, imitators popped up, and one of those involved a man dressed as a woman and who addressed someone called “Sister.”  The Sister ads were funny and very well done, but never caught on like the Varney ads did.  But here’s what impressed me.  At the end of every commercial, the actor would look into the camera as say “Be Sweet!”

I was impressed again.  Not many slogans are just two words, and I thought those two words were very memorable.  So, I adapted them for my own use, and “Be Logical” became my show-close as it has been now for more than 30 years.

RELATED:  Living in the Logical States of America 

To complete the shtick, I created an imaginary “Department of Logic” that I suggested the U.S. Government adopt in order to help it stop doing stupid things.  Like spending more money than we have.  I made myself the titular head of that department known as the “Secretary of Logic.”  So, that’s history of the Lynn Woolley logic brand.  I’ve always tried to live up to it.

What Mr. Spock said.

Leonard Nimoy, playing the role of Spock never got any laugh lines.  He rarely, if ever, got the girl.  He was free of the albatross of emotion, unless he was changed by some alien force.  He was truthful, dependable, and fact-based.  He would say things like: “That is not logical,” and “Indeed, Captain.”  He was to the point and usually right, except when the half of him that was human got in the way.  I loved the portrayal, and Spock became the show’s breakaway character.

To see Mr. Spock at his best, take a viewing of the episode “City on the Edge of Forever,” written by Harlan Ellison and first aired on NBC on April 6, 1967.  If I was tasked to name the ten best individual episodes of all hour-long dramas I’ve ever seen on TV, I think this one might be at the top of the list.

RELATED: My amazing Star Wars Encounter with Leonard Nimoy 

In the episode, Dr. McCoy is accidentally injected with an overdose that makes him go crazy, and he beams down to a planet where there exists a mysterious portal known as “The Guardian of Forever.”  Pursued by Kirk and Spock, he escapes through the portal into Earth’s past.  At that point, Kirk and Spock lose contact with the Enterprise.  The portal is intelligent and explains that Dr. McCoy has altered history and that the Federation of Planets and the Enterprise no longer exist.  It offers to send the two men back in time, just slightly ahead of McCoy, so they can prepare for his arrival and try to stop him from changing history.

Arriving in Depression-era New York, they disguise themselves in period clothing with Spock wearing a pullover cap to hide his ears.  They begin to work in a soup kitchen run by a woman named Edith Keeler, who is key to the plot of the episode.  In the normal flow of history, Keeler was supposed to be killed in a traffic accident.  Using his tricorder, Spock determines that if she survives, Edith Keeler will eventually lead a peace movement that will result in Hitler winning the war.  Kirk, who has fallen in love with her, is devastated.  But Spock understands that unless Edith Keeler dies, the future will not develop as it should.  This sets up the logic problem.

As the show reaches its climax, McCoy is located and is back to his normal self.  The three men are standing along a street as Edith Keeler crosses, not noticing a truck coming at her.  This is the moment of truth, the point at which she is supposed to die in the normal flow of history.  Save her, and the future is doomed.  Let her die, and all will be as it is supposed to be.  But Kirk loves her.  What does he do?

Instinctively, Kirk moves to save her, but is warned off by Spock.  McCoy also moves to save her, but is restrained by Kirk.  As she is run down and killed by the truck, history is restored to its normal course.  McCoy is shaken and asks whether Kirk knows what he just did in allowing Keeler to step in front of the truck.

Spock responds: “He knows, Doctor. He knows.”

Video:  You’ll have to go to You Tube to view the scene.

It’s a problem of logic and emotion all at the same time.  Kirk has fallen for the woman, but he understands that if she lives, future history will be different and very bad.  He has only a second to make a decision.  He throws away his emotions, and logically does the right thing.  I’ve seen the episode many times and I always wonder what I would have done.

What Marilyn vos Savant said.

Her book is a keeper, and I’d held onto my copy for years.  In it, she talks about logic in making choices, but the most impressive thing she does is present problems – riddles if you prefer – and teaches us how to solve them.

Video:  An interview with Marilyn vos Savant

Here’s a little poem/problem that carries within itself all the clues you need to logic out who is speaking:

A man is walking up a set of stairs when he encounters a portrait of a man.  He looks at it and says: “Brothers and sisters have I none, but this man’s father is my father’s son.”

The answer is simple, if convoluted.  But it makes you think logically. If you haven’t already figured this one out, keep at it.  The facts are all you need to solve it.

Ms. Vos Savant is famous for the “Monty Hall Problem,” about which she was routinely challenged.  Google AI states the problem for us:

The Setup:

• There are three doors. Behind one door is a car; behind the other two are goats.
• Your Initial Choice:
• You pick a door (e.g., Door #1). At this point, your door has a 1/3 chance of having the car.
• The Host’s Action:
• The host, who knows what’s behind each door, opens one of the other two doors to reveal a goat.

The Choice:

• You are then given the option to stick with your original choice or switch to the other unopened door.

 Here’s what vos Savant offers as the solution, as summarized by the AI:

Marilyn vos Savant correctly stated that in the Monty Hall problem, you should always switch doors to increase your chances of winning the car from 1/3 to 2/3. This counter-intuitive solution faced significant backlash, with many, including those with PhDs, insisting she was wrong. Her explanation hinges on the host’s knowledge and constraint: the host, knowing where the car is, must open a door with a goat, concentrating the initial 2/3 probability of the car being behind one of the other two doors onto the single remaining unopened door.

This is her most controversial riddle, but think about it and see if you can understand the logic she applies to it.

How thinking logically can help you understand life decisions and political positions.

One thing I’ve always depended on is the Transitive Property.  In mathematics it goes like this:

If two things are equal to a third thing, then they are equal to each other. 

That’s simple with numbers.  Let say that A and B are both equal to C.  Then, by the Transitive Property, A must be equal to B.  In pure numbers, if A has a value of 20, and C has a value of 20, then A = C, and since A = B, then the value of B must also be 20.  In math, that is immutable.

It works that way in life as well:  

You can’t afford to buy a house that costs more than $300,000.  The house you are considering costs more than $300,000.  Therefore, you can’t afford the house. 

And in politics:

When government spends more money than it takes in, the National Debt will become unsustainable.  The National Debt has become unsustainable.  Therefore, the government must not spend more money than it takes in.

You can tell me all day long that this is too simplistic.  It’s not.  It’s not even an art.  It’s the science of merely putting two facts together to see how they work out.  The answer is always obvious, but is almost always disputed along party lines.

Try this one:

When government became heavily involved in college tuition, the cost of attending college rose significantly.  Government is becoming heavily involved in healthcare.  Therefore, the cost of healthcare is rising significantly.

Or this one:

When congressional hearings are televised, the hearings turn into partisan shouting matches.  Most congressional hearings are televised.  Therefore, most congressional hearings turn into partisan shouting matches.

It’s not that simple, say you?  I say it often is.  Prove me wrong.  Consider the logic of Trump’s handling of tariffs or Biden’s handing of the border.  A bit of logic goes a long way.  The problem with Congress is that there’s not much logic remaining.  Issues like Birthright Citizenship only need to look at original intent, and the illogic of preserving a practice that makes no sense and does great harm to the country.

Consider the logic of a welfare state that enables a man to impregnate a woman and leave her, without consequences, while it pays single women to have babies.  Think about the statement that “incarceration does not keep the crime rate down.”  Say, what?  That makes no sense.

In today’s America and indeed the world, logic is out and emotion and insanity are in.  Women can’t be men, and men can’t be women, and yet we have a justice of the Supreme Court that can’t define what a woman is.

Doctors and hospitals perform sex-change operations for the profit while knowing that you cannot change a person’s sex.  That’s not logical.  Our system of medical care, with Big Insurance as the middleman, is so totally illogical, that it is being crushed under its own weight.  We ought to change it, but the American people pump billions into insurance company coffers in unneeded and unnecessary insurance premiums and there is no incentive to change.  That’s not logical.

The lobbying system in Congress is illogical as hell.  So is the idea that members of Congress, that have inside information, can use it to get rich while the rest of us would do jail time for doing the same thing.  Carping about Climate Change when sinking trillions into it without results is illogical.  Gerrymandering is illogical.  Not having term limits when politicians have served past their expiration dates is illogical.

Where is the federal Department of Logic when we need it?

We tried some logic with Elon Musk and DOGE and somebody, somewhere went berserk over every penny that was cut.  Congress will put it all back.  There will come a day of reckoning just as there was with the Subprime Crisis.   Nobody thought that could happen.  But it did, and nobody seems to think we have a debt crisis, but we do.

Fixing it would be logical, but the government has been shut down more than once because one party thinks government should spend more on healthcare in perpetuity, which will (logically) cause healthcare costs to go up.

You should try what I just did.

Get a yellow tablet and jot down all the things that are illogical about your life, and the politics of your country.  You might write your congressman about it.  He won’t do anything, but it’s worth a try.  If you can fully grok the Monty Hall Problem, maybe you should run.

In closing, I’d like to thank Mr. Spock and Marilyn vos Savant for opening my eyes to the power of logical thinking.  That’s what has guided most of my adult life and has helped me make better decisions.  With just a little logic, congressmen could make better decisions too, but logic tells me they never will.

Lynn Woolley is a Texas-based author, broadcaster, and songwriter.  Follow his podcast at https://www.PlanetLogic.us.  Check out his author’s page at https://www.Amazon.com/author/lynnwoolley. 

Order books direct from Lynn at https://PlanetLogicPress.Square.Site. 

Email Lynn at lwoolley9189@gmail.com.

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