How to use experts—and when not to - Noreena Hertz

Summary

The speaker challenges our reliance on experts, highlighting the dangers of surrendering personal decision-making to their authority. Through examples, they illustrate the fallibility of experts and the need for skepticism. The talk advocates for a more democratic approach to expertise, encouraging managed dissent and embracing diverse perspectives to foster smarter decision-making in a complex world.

Takeaways

• 😣 We often rely on experts for decisions, especially when the stakes are high, due to our belief in their ability to process complex information better than we can.
• 🤔 The speaker suggests that our dependence on experts can be problematic, as it may lead to a surrender of our own decision-making capabilities.
• 🧠 An experiment mentioned in the script indicates that listening to experts can actually deactivate the part of the brain responsible for independent decision-making.
• 😅 Experts are not infallible; they can and do make mistakes, which can have significant consequences, as illustrated by examples from the medical and financial sectors.
• 🔍 The speaker advocates for a more critical approach to expertise, encouraging individuals to question and challenge what experts say.
• 🌐 The world of experts is described as often being insular, with dominant perspectives that can stifle dissenting opinions and slow the pace of paradigm shifts.
• 💊 The influence of social and cultural norms on experts is highlighted, showing how these norms can lead to outdated or harmful practices.
• 💼 The role of financial interests in shaping expert opinions is pointed out, with examples of how funding can bias research findings.
• 🤯 The speaker proposes three strategies for dealing with experts: challenging them, creating space for dissent, and democratizing expertise.
• 🗣️ Encouraging dissent and managing it effectively can lead to smarter decision-making by incorporating diverse and discordant views.
• 🌟 The script concludes with a call to redefine expertise, suggesting that it should not be limited to those with formal qualifications but should include the knowledge and insights of everyday people.

Q & A

What is the main issue the speaker addresses regarding the reliance on experts?

The speaker addresses the issue of over-reliance on experts, suggesting that people have become addicted to their certainty and definitiveness, which has led to a ceding of personal responsibility and decision-making power to these experts.

What does the speaker suggest happened to the brain during an experiment when listening to experts?

The speaker suggests that during an experiment, when adults listened to experts, the parts of their brains responsible for independent decision-making literally flatlined, indicating a cessation of critical thinking and an acceptance of the experts' advice without question.

What is the consequence of relying too heavily on experts according to the speaker?

The consequence of relying too heavily on experts, as per the speaker, is the potential for dangerous outcomes for society and individuals, as it leads to a surrendering of one's intellect and the illusion of certainty provided by experts, even when they may be wrong.

Why does the speaker believe that experts can be problematic?

The speaker believes experts can be problematic because they often form rigid camps with a dominant perspective that silences opposition, they are influenced by the social and cultural norms of their times, and they can be swayed by financial interests, leading to biased outcomes.

What examples does the speaker provide to illustrate that experts can make mistakes?

The speaker provides examples such as doctors missing diagnoses, tax advisors making errors in tax returns, and financial experts contributing to a severe recession, to illustrate that experts are not infallible and can make significant mistakes.

What strategies does the speaker propose to deal with the challenges of relying on experts?

The speaker proposes strategies such as being ready to question experts, creating space for managed dissent, and redefining who is considered an expert to include a more diverse range of perspectives, thereby promoting a more democratic approach to expertise.

What does the speaker mean by 'managed descent'?

By 'managed descent,' the speaker means creating an environment where expert ideas are openly debated and challenged, allowing for the inclusion of diverse and even dissenting views, which can lead to breakthroughs and the destruction of outdated paradigms.

How does the speaker suggest redefining the concept of experts?

The speaker suggests redefining the concept of experts by embracing democratized expertise, which means recognizing the value of knowledge and insights from individuals beyond those with traditional markers of expertise, such as advanced degrees or high-status positions.

What is the role of dissent in the speaker's view on dealing with experts?

In the speaker's view, dissent plays a crucial role as it challenges the prevailing ideas and encourages the consideration of alternative viewpoints, which can lead to smarter decision-making and the evolution of thought.

What is the speaker's stance on the use of experts in the 21st century?

The speaker advocates for a more critical and discerning use of experts, suggesting that while they can be helpful, it is essential to be aware of their limitations and to maintain one's own capacity for independent decision-making.

How does the speaker describe the current societal attitude towards experts?

The speaker describes the current societal attitude as one of blind acceptance and trust in experts, which they argue is not conducive to facing the complex challenges of the 21st century and needs to change.

Outlines

00:00

🤔 The Reliance on Experts and Its Pitfalls

The script begins by illustrating various scenarios where individuals face critical decisions, from geopolitical to personal health matters. It emphasizes the common tendency to rely on experts for guidance, especially in complex situations. However, it argues that this reliance may be problematic, as it can lead to a surrender of personal responsibility and decision-making power. The author points out that experts are not infallible, citing examples of misdiagnoses by doctors and the financial sector's failure leading to a recession. The script suggests that an over-reliance on experts can lead to a dangerous abdication of our own intellect and critical thinking.

05:00

🧐 The Rigid Nature of Expert Consensus and Its Consequences

This paragraph delves into the nature of experts and their tendency to form rigid camps around dominant perspectives, often suppressing dissenting views. It highlights the influence of social and cultural norms on experts and how these can lead to outdated or harmful practices, such as the historical mishandling of women's health and homosexuality. The author discusses the slow shift in paradigms, the neglect of nuance, and the potential for financial influence to skew expert opinions and findings. The paragraph also touches on the fallibility of experts, who can make mistakes due to carelessness or cognitive biases, and calls for a reevaluation of the role of experts in society.

10:01

🚀 Strategies for Challenging Expert Authority

The speaker proposes three strategies to counteract the over-reliance on experts. The first is to challenge experts directly and demand clarity and transparency in their methods and assumptions. The second strategy involves fostering an environment of 'managed descent,' where diverse and dissenting views are encouraged to promote intellectual progress. The final strategy is to redefine expertise itself, advocating for a democratization of expertise that includes insights from a broader range of individuals, not just those with traditional credentials. The speaker argues that these strategies can help maintain independent thinking and better equip us to navigate the complexities of the modern world.

15:04

🌟 Embracing Dissent and Democratizing Expertise

In the concluding paragraph, the speaker reinforces the importance of embracing dissent and expanding the definition of expertise to include a wider array of perspectives. They advocate for a more inclusive approach to decision-making, where the insights of employees at all levels are valued and utilized. The speaker provides an example of how a company leveraged the collective predictions of its staff to uncover potential issues that its experts had overlooked. The paragraph concludes with a call to action to remain skeptical, to challenge experts, and to be comfortable with uncertainty, as these are the qualities that will best prepare us for the challenges of the 21st century.

Keywords

💡Experts

Experts are individuals with specialized knowledge or skills in a particular field. In the video, the reliance on experts is presented as a cultural phenomenon, where people often defer to their authority without question. The speaker challenges this by suggesting that experts can be wrong and that society should be more critical and independent in decision-making, as illustrated by the example of financial experts leading to a recession.

💡Decision-making

Decision-making refers to the process of selecting a course of action from among multiple alternatives. The video discusses the importance of independent decision-making, emphasizing that while experts can provide valuable insights, individuals should not abdicate their own judgment to them. The script uses personal anecdotes, such as the speaker's dilemma over their father's health, to highlight the complexity and personal nature of decisions.

💡Certainty

Certainty is the state of being confident of the truth of something. The speaker argues that people have become addicted to the certainty provided by experts, which can be misleading. The script points out that experts are not infallible, and relying on their supposed certainty can lead to complacency and poor decision-making.

💡Addiction to Experts

The concept of 'addiction to experts' in the script refers to an over-reliance on experts for guidance and validation in decision-making. It suggests that this dependency can be detrimental because it undermines personal judgment and critical thinking, as people may follow expert advice without question.

💡Rigidity

Rigidity in the context of the video refers to the inflexibility of expert groups and their tendency to form closed-minded camps. The speaker criticizes this by pointing out that such rigidity can stifle innovation and ignore alternative perspectives, as seen in the example of Alan Greenspan's unchecked economic predictions.

💡Dissent

Dissent is the expression of disagreement with an opinion or decision. The video encourages embracing dissent as a way to challenge prevailing ideas and promote intellectual growth. It contrasts the natural instinct to seek agreement with the rebellious notion of seeking out and valifying differing viewpoints.

💡Managed Descent

Managed descent is a concept introduced in the video to describe the controlled environment where diverse and even opposing ideas can be debated. It is presented as a strategy for paradigm shifts and breakthroughs, suggesting that progress requires not just the creation but also the destruction of ideas.

💡Democratized Expertise

Democratized expertise is the idea of distributing knowledge and decision-making power beyond traditional expert circles to include a wider range of individuals. The video uses the example of Best Buy leveraging the insights of its entire staff, not just specialized forecasters, to predict business outcomes more accurately.

💡Rebellion

Rebellion, in the context of the video, is the act of challenging the authority of experts and traditional ways of thinking. It is portrayed as a necessary strategy for breaking free from the limitations of expert-driven decision-making and encouraging a more inclusive and diverse approach to problem-solving.

💡Uncertainty

Uncertainty is the state of being unsure or lacking information. The speaker advocates for embracing uncertainty as a natural part of decision-making, rather than seeking the false comfort of expert certainty. The script suggests that being comfortable with uncertainty can lead to more thoughtful and nuanced decisions.

💡Nuance

Nuance refers to subtle and complex details or distinctions. The video argues that experts and society at large often overlook nuance in favor of oversimplified or definitive answers. The speaker calls for a greater appreciation of nuance in both expert advice and personal decision-making.

Highlights

Individuals and societies rely heavily on experts for decision-making, especially in high-stakes situations.

The modern reliance on experts may lead to a dangerous over-dependence, diminishing our own decision-making abilities.

An experiment showed that listening to experts can actually deactivate parts of the brain responsible for independent decision-making.

Experts can be wrong; for example, doctors often misdiagnose, and tax returns filed by individuals may be more accurate than those filed by experts.

Financial experts' mistakes have contributed to severe economic recessions, highlighting the fallibility of experts.

The speaker, an economist and professor, advocates for a change in the role of experts to be more open-minded and democratic.

Experts often form rigid camps with a dominant perspective, suppressing dissenting views.

Experts are influenced by the social and cultural norms of their time, which can lead to outdated or harmful practices.

Paradigm shifts in expert fields are slow, and complexity is often overlooked due to prevailing winds of thought.

Financial interests can sway expert opinions, as seen in pharmaceutical and food industry studies.

Experts make mistakes daily, some due to carelessness and others due to cognitive biases.

The importance of being skeptical and challenging experts to maintain independent thinking is emphasized.

Three strategies are proposed: taking experts on, creating space for managed descent, and democratizing expertise.

Encouraging dissent and differing views can lead to smarter decision-making and breakthroughs.

The concept of democratized expertise suggests that expertise should not be limited to those with advanced degrees or high status.

Best Buy leveraged the predictions of all its employees, not just experts, to uncover potential issues with a new store opening.

Embracing dissent and skepticism towards experts can better prepare us for the challenges of the 21st century.

The speaker concludes by advocating for a balance between using experts and maintaining our own critical thinking skills.

Transcripts

it's Monday morning in Washington the

President of the United States is

sitting in the Oval Office assessing

whether or not to strike al Qaeda in

Yemen at number 10 Downing Street David

Cameron is trying to work out whether to

cut more public sector jobs in order to

stave off a double-dip recession in

Madrid Maria Gonzalez is standing at the

door listening to her baby crying and

crying trying to work out whether she

should let it cry until it falls asleep

or pick it up and hold it and I am

sitting by my father's bedside in

hospital trying to work out whether I

should let him drink the one and a half

liter bottle of water that his doctors

just came and came in and said you must

make him drink today my father's been

milled by mouth for a week or whether by

giving him this bottle I might actually

kill him we face momentous decisions

with important consequences throughout

our lives and we have strategies for

dealing with these decisions we talk

things over with our friends we scared

the internet we search through books but

still even in this age of Google and

TripAdvisor and Amazon recommends it

still experts that we rely upon most

especially when the stakes are high and

the decision really matters because in a

world of data deluge and extreme

complexity we believe that experts are

more able to process information than we

can that they are able to come to better

conclusions than we could come to on our

own and in an age that is sometimes

nowadays frightening or confuse

Singh we feel reassured by the almost

parental like authority of experts who

tell us so clearly what it is we can and

cannot do but I believe that this is a

big problem a problem with potentially

dangerous consequences for us as a

society as a culture and as individuals

it's not that experts have not massively

contributed to the world of course they

have the problem lies with us we've

become addicted to experts we've become

addicted to their certainty their

assuredness their definitiveness and in

the process we have ceded our

responsibility substituting our

intellect and our intelligence for their

supposed words of wisdom we've

surrendered our power trading off our

discomfort with uncertainty for the

illusion of certainty that they provide

this is no exaggeration in a recent

experiment a group of adults had their

brain scanned in an MRI machine as they

were listening to experts speak the

results were quite extraordinary as they

listened to the experts voices the

independent decision-making parts of

their brains switched off it literally

flatlined and they listened to whatever

the experts said and took their advice

however right or wrong the experts do

get things wrong did you know that

studies show that doctors miss diagnose

four times out of ten did you know that

if you file your tax returns yourself

you're statistically more likely to be

filing them correctly than if you get a

tax advisor to do it for

yay and then there's of course the

example that we're all too aware of of

financial experts getting it so wrong

that we're living through the worst

recession since the 1930s for the sake

of our health our wealth and our

collective security it's imperative that

we keep the independent decision-making

parts of our brains switched on and I'm

saying this as an economist who over the

past few years has focused my research

on what it is we think and who it is we

trust and why but also and I'm aware of

the irony here as an expert myself as a

professor as somebody who advises prime

ministers heads of big companies

international organizations but an

expert who believes that the role of

experts needs to change that we need to

become more open-minded more democratic

and be more open to people rebelling

against our points of view so in order

to help you understand where I'm coming

from let me bring you into my world the

world of experts now there are of course

exceptions wonderful civilization

enhancing exceptions but what my

research has shown me is that experts

tend on the whole to form very rigid

camps that within these camps a dominant

perspective emerges that often silences

opposition that experts move with the

prevailing winds often hero-worshipping

their own gurus Alan Greenspan's

proclamations that the years of economic

growth would go on and on not challenged

by his peers until after the crisis of

course

you see we also learn that experts are

located a governed by the social and

cultural norms of their times whether it

be the doctors in Victorian England say

who sent women to asylums for expressing

sexual desire or the psychiatrists in

the United States who up until 1973 was

still categorizing homosexuality as a

mental illness and what all this means

is that paradigms take far too long to

shift that complexity and nuance are

ignored and also that money talks

because we've all seen the evidence of

pharmaceutical companies funding studies

of drugs that conveniently leave out

their worst side effects or studies

funded by food companies of of their new

products massively exaggerating the

health benefits of the products they're

about to bring by market a study showed

that food companies exaggerated

typically seven times more than an

independent study and we've also got to

be aware that experts of course also

make mistakes they make mistakes every

single day mistakes born out of

carelessness a recent study in the

archives of surgery reported surgeons

removing healthy ovaries operating on

the wrong side of the brain carrying out

procedures on the wrong hand

elbow eye foot and also mistakes born

out of thinking errors a common thinking

error of radiologists for example when

they look at CT scans is that they're

overly influenced by whatever it is that

the referring physician has said that he

aspects the patient's problem to be so

if a radiologist is looking at the scan

of a patient with suspected pneumonia

say what happens is that if they see

evidence of pneumonia on the scan

they literally stop looking at it

thereby missing the tumor sitting three

inches below on the patient's lungs I've

shared with you so far some insights

into the world of experts these are of

course not the only insights I could

share but I hope they give you a clearer

sense at least of why we need to stop

Cowtown to them why we need to rebel and

why we need to switch our independent

decision-making capabilities on but how

can we do this well for the sake of time

I want to focus on just three strategies

first we've got to be ready and willing

to take experts on and dispense with

this notion of them as modern-day

apostles this doesn't mean having to get

a PhD in every single subject you'll be

relieved to hear but it does mean

persisting in the face of their

inevitable annoyance when for example we

want them to explain things to us in

language that we can actually understand

why was it that when I had an operation

my doctor said to me beware miss hurts

of hyperpyrexia when he could have just

as easily said watch out for a high

fever you see being ready to take

experts on is about also being willing

to dig behind their graphs their

equations their forecasts their

prophecies and being armed with the

questions to do that questions like what

are the assumptions that underpin this

what is the evidence

upon which this is based what has your

investigation focused on and what has it

ignored it recently came out that

experts trialing drugs before they come

to market typically trial drugs first

primarily on male animals and then

primarily on men it seems that they've

somehow overlooked the fact that over

half the world's population are women

and women have drawn the short medical

straw because it now turns out that many

of these drugs don't work nearly as well

on women as they do on men and the drugs

that do work well work so well that

they're actively harmful for women to

take being a rebel is about recognizing

that experts assumptions and their

methodologies can easily be flawed

second we need to create the space for

what I call managed descent if we are to

shift paradigms if we are to make

breakthroughs if we are to destroy myths

we need to create an environment in

which expert ideas are battling it out

in which we're bringing in new diverse

discordant heretical views into the

discussion fearlessly in the knowledge

that progress comes about not only from

the creation of ideas but also from

their destruction and also from the

knowledge that by surrounding ourselves

by divergent discordant heretical views

all the research now shows us that this

actually makes us smarter encouraging

dissent is a rebellious notion because

it goes against our very instincts which

are to surround ourselves with opinions

and advice that we already believe or

want to be

true and that's why I talk about the

need to actively manage dissent Google's

CEO Eric Schmidt is a practical

practitioner of this philosophy in

meetings he looks out for the person in

the room arms crossed looking a bit

bemused and draws them into the

discussion trying to see if they indeed

are the person with a different opinion

so that they have dissent within the

room managing dissent is about

recognizing the value of disagreement

discord and difference but we need to go

even further we need to fundamentally

redefine who it is that experts are the

conventional notion is that experts are

people with advanced degrees fancy

titles diplomas best-selling books high

status individuals but just imagine if

we were to junk this nation of expertise

as some sort of elite cadre and instead

embrace the notion of democratized

expertise whereby expertise was not just

the preserve of surgeons and CEOs but

also shopgirls yeah best by the consumer

electronics company gets all its

employees the cleaners the shop

assistants the people in the back office

not just its forecasting team to place

bets

yes bets on things like whether or not a

product is going to sell well before

Christmas on whether new customers new

ideas are going to be or should be taken

on by the company on whether a project

will come in on time by leveraging and

by embracing the expertise within the

company best buy was able to

discover for example that the store

that it was going to open in China it's

big grand store was not going to open on

time because when it asked its staff all

its staff to place their bets on whether

they thought the store would open on

time or not a group from the finance

department placed all their chips on

that not happening

it turns out that they were where as no

one else within the company was of a

technological blip that neither the

forecasting experts nor the experts on

the ground on China were even aware of

the strategies that I have discussed

this evening embracing dissent taking

experts on democratizing expertise

rebellious strategies are strategies

that I think would serve us all well to

embrace as we try to deal with the

challenges of these very confusing

complex difficult times for if we keep

our independent decision-making part of

our brains switched on if we challenge

experts if we're skeptical if we devolve

Authority if we are rebellious but also

if we become much more comfortable with

nuance uncertainty and doubt and if we

allow our experts to express themselves

using those terms too we will set

ourselves up much better for the

challenges of the 21st century for now

more than ever is not the time to be

blindly following blindly accepting

blindly trusting now is the time to face

the world with eyes wide open yes using

experts to help us figure things out for

sure I don't want to completely do

myself out of a job here

but being aware of their limitations and

of course also our own thank you