A long time ago I heard and adopted a phrase that has served me well for two decades: "You can't swing a dead cat without hitting an expert." Nick Kristof captures this sentiment exactly with this piece and his analysis that most "experts" are nothing more than walking fucksticks with big mouths is spot on.
Link here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/opinion/26Kristof.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print
Learning How to Think
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Ever wonder how financial experts could lead the world over the economic cliff?
One explanation is that so-called experts turn out to be, in many situations, a stunningly poor source of expertise. There’s evidence that what matters in making a sound forecast or decision isn’t so much knowledge or experience as good judgment — or, to be more precise, the way a person’s mind works.
More on that in a moment. First, let’s acknowledge that even very smart people allow themselves to be buffaloed by an apparent “expert” on occasion.
The best example of the awe that an “expert” inspires is the “Dr. Fox effect.” It’s named for a pioneering series of psychology experiments in which an actor was paid to give a meaningless presentation to professional educators.
The actor was introduced as “Dr. Myron L. Fox” (no such real person existed) and was described as an eminent authority on the application of mathematics to human behavior. He then delivered a lecture on “mathematical game theory as applied to physician education” — except that by design it had no point and was completely devoid of substance. However, it was warmly delivered and full of jokes and interesting neologisms.
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