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With his formulation, the German creator of quantum mechanics (1901-1976) provoked an uproar in science and energized philosophy. Ergo, it's famous.

The Alpert principle - stated simply as, "It's just possible that I'm wrong" - is obscure. We live in an age of certainties. Doubt is out, and I do not know why.

Genetics? I was born fearful and have struggled toward self-confidence. Does this explain why my strong political views stop short of certain? Did heredity gave Osama bin Laden the opposite - a lack of self-doubt? Maybe, but George W. Bush sure knows what he thinks, and he was a troubled guy until born again. So discard DNA as the sole mother of all certainty.

Is certainty a form of paranoia? Maureen Dowd of the New York Times enjoys painting Vice President Cheney cowering in his bunker. It's plausible - why else would he conflate 9/11 and Iraq and so often warn of the Apocalypse? Nobody doubts Cheney's intelligence, so unless you think he's cynical, you have to consider the possibility that he's ruled by fear.

Or maybe it's about belief. As a card-carrying agnostic, I'm no expert, but - like Justice Stewart with porn - I know it when I see it. Happily, belief or faith often inspire love, kindness and art. Unfortunately, true believers provoke murderous events, too. Historically, the wholesale spillers of blood are hardly relativists. No, they are sects and societies fearful of doubt - like the Soviet and Maoist Communists and countless armies fulfilling what they say is God's plan.

Which makes Lincoln wishy-washy. Abe was speculating, even in mid-Civil War, that "God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party." What a wimp.

Does morality breed certainty? We know the rules. You don't, you die. This has a certain logic, if morality equals decency. It doesn't. Remember Huck Finn's struggle to find The Good? Should he uphold morality, everything God-fearing folks hold dear, by ratting on the escaped slave, Jim? Or should he help his dear friend, Jim, and risk burning in Hell?

Certainty bears such bitter fruit. My country is a serial torturer. The president, having misled us into a war of choice, conducts it secretly and outside the Constitution. Opinion is split, but millions of Americans still applaud. Outrageously, the warmongers characterize doubters as immoral or treasonous. And liberals, defamed, snivel, pleading for decorum.

Me, I leave manners to Thelma Domenici, who advises on and writes about corporate social skills and manners. My view is that people who wrap themselves in flags and religious symbols to wage optional war and subvert my Constitution, who characterize dissent as disloyalty, need to be properly identified. They are fascist wannabees.

Still, I don't know how they arrived, internally, at certainty. Surely they think themselves innocent, even heroic. So I hesitate to condemn them the way they do me. Besides, I'm always spotting villains who, it turns out, wear red noses and floppy shoes.

So I wish them well. Maybe Christmas will pacify the paranoid, divert the God-told-me-to-bomb-first gang. Funny, I know no carols about sending trusting young soldiers to die for - what's the latest party line? - spreading democracy. No carols preaching secrecy, intolerance, wealth as virtue or supply-side economics.

Nope, Christmas, as I remember it, is about an infant bringing news of love and peace and hope.

Yes, maybe Christmas will help, but I am far from certain.

Alpert is a semi-retired journalist in Albuquerque. E-mail him at ArthurAlpert@swcp.com. His column runs the fourth Thursday of the month.