What Newton Can Remind Us about Good Intentions

Ryan Messmore / February 17, 2011

When studying Isaac Newton’s laws of motion in high school, we all learn that every action has a reaction. I was recently reminded of that simple truth of physics at a symposium addressing poverty.

Last week, as part of a two-day forum sponsored by The Heritage Foundation at the University of Mobile, Jay Richards spoke about why “Good Intentions Aren’t Good Enough.” His main point was that well-meaning government policies often end up hurting those they are designed to help. In other words, what seem like compassionate actions can have harmful reactions.

Take the 1973 Endangered Species Act, for example. The law allows the federal government to restrict landowners’ use of their properties if a listed species’s habitat is discovered there. Such a law, though well-intentioned, pits the interests of landowners against the interest of animals such as the red-cockaded woodpeckers, which nest in trees. In fact, in 2006, landowners in one North Carolina town clear-cut miles of wooded lots to avoid having their pine trees become “infested” with woodpeckers and thus come under the regulations of the federal government. The good intentions of this government policy actually drove landowners to destroy rather than preserve a habitat for endangered species. (more…)