The Paradox of Unanimity

The Paradox of Unanimity

It was May the 25th,1993. The town of Idar-Oberstein in Germany had just witnessed the most gruesome murder of a 62-year-old woman. Even after a series of rigorous and stringent investigations, the police were only able to collate futile shreds of evidence, pointless allegations, and a DNA sample whose analysis professed the murderer was a woman.

This was just the beginning of the most tormenting case that would plague the minds of the citizens for decades to come. A serial killer on loose, whose unquenchable thirst for blood and impeccable stealth had thwarted the German police. Murders at different places at different times and to one’s astonishment the recurrence of the same futile DNA evidence, sometimes to be found in a kitchen drawer or on a pillowcase. It was a puzzle that engorged as and when more pieces were found, yet none fell in place. People became dearly cautious as the word spread, and they started coming up with numerous theories. To the commoners, these weren’t just another tittle-tattles or the usual word on the street, it was an ever-tightening spiral of trepidation and terror with no hope of escape just a fall of fear. “Phantom of Hellibron”, a name spurred out of those haunted minds for this faceless demon. A name, that would reverberate inside their terror-stricken cranium, confining them into their chambers of anxiety, and making them fear their own reflection. Even though there were convicts but none proved guilty and the clouds of uncertainty with winds of fear prevailed.

Alas! The cat’s out of the bag; after multitudes of evidence and painstaking investigations, it came to the most staggering conclusion. The cotton swabs used to diligently pick up these table-turning DNA samples had already been contaminated by a woman working at the production factory and now everything fell into place.

Disappointed, right? There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact. The mere but unavoidable recurrence of the same evidence did play an awful lot many tricks on the minds of the investigators, making not just them but even the public take a stance and hypothesize this homicidal, sadistic and faceless murderer. This scuttlebutt conclusion was so decisively taken and impactfully imposed that it tormented the entire system and even weaved the most convincing theory, “The Phantom of Hellibron”.

A construct of baseless thoughts beholds an unprecedented but detrimental prowess when it’s seen eye to eye. The castle tumbles down, due to the horde of absurd ideas that bang straightaway at its walls. The word had it, and the people made it have it.

Sometimes, when something seems too good to be true, then my friend, it might not be.

This saying even finds its grounds in our courtrooms. Think for a minute, you and four others of your friends are called upon to identify a culprit. Three of you point out Mr. Elias as the culprit. So, as the majority wins so does Mr. Elias goes behind the bars. But there’s a twist. In case all five of you point out that Mr. Elias is the culprit, then it would surely seem that the case is done and dusted. That’s exactly where a siren goes off in your head that something’s fishy. How come everyone is pointing fingers at the same person? Are they all bribed? Is something going on under the table? Is Mr. Elias really guilty? Did I make a mistake? Or am I just overthinking?

Well, these questions are sensible and so-so but still, you are beating around the bush. A better question that matches your unprecedented standards of intellect is, why are you even asking them?

To a very appreciable extent, a so-so answer for your previously mentioned impeccable intellect is as follows: You the smarty-pants here have noticed something. Something it couldn’t turn a deaf ear to. It was brought to light, that this case has a fair share of variances to be included. There are numerous ways via which the outcome could have differed, and what piques you are that surprisingly everyone has the same verdict. You have started doubting this unanimous agreement, and a question from a brain like yours is an honor attending. The essence of the answer is that it turns out that the probability of a larger number of “all agreeing” people is small and so our confidence in unanimity is ill-founded.

But, in case you decide to stay quiet and innocent Mr. Elias goes to prison, then this unanimous identification seems to him like less certain guilt and makes him feel more like a victim of systemic error or bias in the line-up.

This is the paradox of unanimity.

Considering, human nature’s cravings for idealism and its desperate chase towards the lands of Utopia, one can’t overlook something as integral as unanimity. A unanimous agreement is an undeniable ideal, especially in those cases where the chances of variance are low, for example, if you ask a group of college students that do they have a girlfriend and all of them reply a no then you might not doubt this unanimous reply, but if even one of them says a yes, then the siren goes red and the floodgates have been opened bringing in arguments like “Is he just bragging? Just look at him. I have ton better shots at getting a girlfriend than this loon.”

But the real world isn’t a matter of the heart but that of numbers so a better example is that of a toss. A fair coin has an equal chance of showcasing heads or tails when tossed. When you start tossing a coin, and it shows a head on three out of five chances you continue tossing. If you toss it a hundred times and the only result that shows up is a head, then you wouldn’t doubt the toss but rather you’d accuse the coin of being false. The result isn’t showcasing that the laws of probability for a binary system have changed but this particular system has failed.

Large unanimous agreement does remain a good thing in certain cases, but only when there is zero or non-zero bias. In a unanimous agreement, one might indicate a systemic error, even though its exact nature is unknown, yet its possibility does make a significant impact.

The cases of “Phantom of Hellibron” or “Mr. Elias” are more evident on the grounds wherein systemic errors have led to false conclusions or accusations respectively. In both the cases, howsoever persistent the conclusions or accusations were, they were wrong and were potent enough to cause the catastrophe, resulting in “Criminalities of Consensus”.

Pragmatically, achieving “perfect agreement” is highly unlikely, even if we do so, it should tell us that there is some hidden factor affecting the system. As one strives for perfect harmony, one should expect some error or disagreement. Paradoxically, it would be apt to say in case a perfect result seems too good to be true then it probably is.

In unanimity, there may well be either cowardice or uncritical thinking.