If you care about being correct more often, here\u2019s a handy rule of thumb:<\/p>\n
Figure out which groups of people have spent their lives studying the issue you want an answer to. If there is a significant majority who believe conclusion X, then make conclusion X your default answer unless you have very strong evidence to believe otherwise.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Put even more simply: \u201cWhen you want the right answer, find out who the experts are and believe what they believe.\u201d<\/p>\n
People already do this with topics they have no emotional investment in. When physicists say they discovered the Higgs\u2019 Boson, I take it at face value. However, when it comes to accepted theories global warming, economics, evolution, nutrition and psychology people are full of skepticism and pet theories.<\/p>\n
When it Hurts to Think for Yourself<\/h2>\n
We strive to teach people to think for themselves and mock people who accept answers simply because of authority. While this policy has good intentions, it has some serious problems.<\/p>\n
First, many subjects are enormously complicated and time consuming to fully understand. Yes, we can chastise people for not making themselves fully informed, but this is a wasted effort. The amount of knowledge in the world greatly exceeds what the average person can or is willing to consume. Advising people to \u201cthink for themselves\u201d on every topic is a recipe for shallow observations.<\/p>\n
Second, this is the kind of advice that is applied selectively. We all, subconsciously, accept the value of expertise. I cede to Stephen Hawking when he tells me something about black holes. However, we tend to use the \u201cthink for yourself\u201d justification to ignore equally informed opinions in sensitive topics. Selective skepticism can be more dangerous than outright gullibility, because at least the latter won’t get biased results.<\/p>\n
My advice isn\u2019t to cede your thinking ability, merely that the default position for all beliefs should be the majority view of experts of that field. Only once you\u2019ve done a comparable amount of research and study on the question as those experts, does skepticism bear fruits.<\/p>\n
Who are the Experts?<\/h2>\n
People have varying answers to this question. Some people would argue that only scientists fit that bill, and within them, only the hard sciences where millions of repeated experiments have proved theorems to incredible accuracy.<\/p>\n
This kind of thinking is too strict. While it\u2019s true that physics has more rigorous standards for evidence than economics, that doesn\u2019t mean your opinion about economics is equally valid as the body of work of thousands of people spending, collectively, millions of hours investigating such problems.<\/p>\n
What we really want is a group of people who (a) have studied the topic in question more than most other groups and (b) don\u2019t have significant biases or incentives to distort information.<\/p>\n
Academia fits this bill pretty well for most topics. The problem with other sources of information, is that they often study the issues in question less or they have larger incentives to distort. Writers like me are a weaker source of expertise for that very reason: I\u2019m paid by how many books and courses I can sell, and how many people want to read my work, not directly on how truthful it is. While I still trust and listen to other writers, if they make a claim that is obviously out of line with more authoritative sources, I side with professional researchers.<\/p>\n
There are domains of knowledge which academia doesn\u2019t cover, or doesn\u2019t treat as an important concern. In those cases, I\u2019d look at people who have studied the topic for considerable time and don\u2019t have considerable incentives to distort. Writers, professionals and role models can fill these gaps.<\/p>\n
What if the Experts are Wrong?<\/h2>\n
The experts are often wrong. However, they\u2019re wrong a lot less than the average person. And, unless you\u2019ve studied the topic for a comparable length of time as the typical expert, they\u2019re wrong about it less often than you are.<\/p>\n
The justification for trusting a group of experts needn\u2019t be based on their infallibility. It only needs to assume that they are, on average, more reliable in their judgement than you are.<\/p>\n
Some people might suggest that this would have compelled trusting alchemists for their model of chemistry in the middle ages. To which I would say yes. The alchemists were definitely mistaken. However, the point isn\u2019t that they were wrong, but that had you lived along side them, your pet theory of chemistry would probably have been even worse.<\/p>\n
Fallibility of a source of information doesn\u2019t logically permit you to believe whatever you feel like.<\/p>\n
Majority, Not Outlier Viewpoints<\/h2>\n
When I say that you should believe what experts believe, I don\u2019t mean you should believe what one expert happens believes. With millions of PhDs, it\u2019s never very hard to find one person who has non-standard views. What you should be looking for are areas where most people within that field agree. If 99 people with PhDs in math believe 2+2=4, you can safely ignore the one guy who thinks it equals five.<\/p>\n
A big problem with reading articles and books on topics, is that they tend to come from a single author. However, because popularity and controversy are positively correlated, this tends to overrepresent quacks in the space of easily accessible ideas.<\/p>\n
A better place to start is to look at more neutral sources to get your ideas. Textbooks, classes and even Wikipedia pages, are all more likely to tell you what the majority of a profession think, instead of the one random outlier.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t Teach the Controversy<\/h2>\n
If a debate exists between sizeable fractions of a group of experts, it is worth understanding both sides of the debate. However, more often the case is that a debate consists of a handful of outlier experts against a more or less consensus viewpoint.<\/p>\n
Like the \u201cthink for yourself\u201d heuristic, people are quick to point out the controversy if they dislike the majority viewpoint. Don\u2019t like what biology has to say about evolution? Well it\u2019s only a theory. Don\u2019t like what climatologists have to say about global warming? Well the jury’s still out. Don\u2019t like what economists have to say about price controls? Hey, there\u2019s some people who disagree!<\/p>\n
If a viewpoint is uncontroversial within the selected class of experts who study the problem full-time, but controversial outside of it, you can trust it\u2019s the people on the outside who are wrong.<\/p>\n
How to Figure Out What Experts Think<\/h2>\n
Unfortunately, this is often the more difficult part. Expert opinions tend to come to us filtered through journalists, television personalities and authors. Some of these people do a good job at translating, but there is a considerably higher incentive to distort than within academia.<\/p>\n
Sometimes this incentive to distort comes from creating false controversy. Making a subject seem more controversial is an easy way to grab more news coverage for an idea.<\/p>\n
Sometimes the incentive is to simplify needlessly. A quick, recitable slogan may be easier to pitch than reality even if it doesn\u2019t fit the facts.<\/p>\n
Sometimes the incentive is to lean on the expertise of others for credibility, but then to say whatever you feel like. You can trust that any self-help book that uses the word \u201cquantum\u201d is of this sort.<\/p>\n
Finding out what experts actually think about issues can be tricky. My advice:<\/p>\n