Keeping Errors at Bay

                                                                              Bertrand Russell, England (1872 – 1970)
Summary in English

In the essay "Keeping Errors at Bay", Russell talks about how to avoid the errors and provides some techniques for that. He talks about the very common examples to avoid the various foolish opinions to which man kinds are prone. According to him, we can be free from most of the errors and blind beliefs through the experiment, common and critical sense.
Both men and women are firmly convinced of the superior excellence of their own sex. We all, whatever part of the world, come from, persuaded that our own nation is superior to all others. But we must be aware that other parts of the cosmos may contain beings or places superior to us. This causes the fear which is the main source of superstition and cruelty. It is by wisdom fear gets resolved.
According to Russell, most of the modern human beings are guided by biasness, pride, selfishness and discrimination. They are proud of their race, nationality, gender, power and knowledge. He gives some examples to support his arguments. Aristotle used to believe that women have fewer teeth than men. Similarly, many ancient and medieval authors knew all about unicorns and salamanders but no of them thought it necessary to avoid dogmatic statements about them.
To Russell, fear is the common source of error. It may operate directly or indirectly which has many forms, for example, fear of death, fear of dark, fear of unknown. In fact, fear is the source of evil. If we use the scientific knowledge and methods, we can avoid such errors. There is nothing more common than evaluation in the everyday world but for sound evaluation to take place, one must establish relevant standards, gather appropriate evidence, and judge the evidence in keeping with the experiment, observation and factual information.