What is an expert take a second or a few seconds to think about what an expert is I
mean
From a young age we are indoctrinated to buy into
What an expert has to say whether it be a police officer?
Whether it be a
scientist a medical doctor a
Teacher we are presented this script that experts know everything and we should listen and follow the experts
Well, I'm not here to tell you that
We shouldn't listen to experts. I'm just questioning where do they get their knowledge from?
What makes them authoritative and should we always listen to the experts and when should we not listen to an expert?
Because really when it comes down to it experts are just like you and I they are human beings
susceptible to the same
Cognitive biases that we are all plagued with they don't possess anything different than you and I do except for
Advanced information in a specific subject matter, and it's not always 100%
So basically experts are just like you and I as I've said with just a little bit more information
That makes them more knowledgeable than us because I certainly don't want to be operating on myself. I
Don't know about you, but if I have an appendix of my appendix break bursts
I don't want to be doing an operation on my own appendix because I don't know what I'm doing and nor would I want to do it on a family member
I mean, I don't know. Maybe some people would want to do that
So hold on to your hats folks because in today's episode
We're gonna descend into this rabbit hole of an expertise and dissect the elusive world of experts
Are they gods or mortals?
And when should you listen to them if ever?
Welcome to life on scripted the podcast that just hits you with the hard truth that life has no script and everything you've been taught is
Illusion I'm Alan Stafford your host join me in this episode as the breakdown with experts are
Whether you said listen to them or not
Okay
Welcome folks look at I'm probably gonna get myself in a little bit of trouble here with the the so-called experts
especially
The self-proclaimed experts those are my favorite
But really the point of this whole podcast is to break down what an expert is and that we shouldn't always
Have to take their word for what they say because they are
Human like us despite what they might think themselves an expert is no different than you and I with just a little bit more training and whatever subject matter
They're
professing to be an expert in as I will show you and demonstrate experts have been wrong before and
They believe and they will be wrong again
But it isn't an episode to bash expertise what I'm trying to do is enlighten your mind
So that you understand
When you should take the advice of an expert and when you should question that and I'm gonna teach you how to question an expert and
verify the information because
For all intents and purposes we're all experts because really expert comes from the word
from the Latin word
X which means out of per to try per is to try or risk so in essence an
expert is
Somebody who's tried and risked and out of that is gained knowledge. So in essence we've all
We've all tried something right and risked something heck we're living life or trying to live life
We're all experts at life right and no seriously think about it
We are life experts you can become a life coach if you want to there's nothing that says you cannot do that
Don't buy into the fake credentials that institutionalized education wants to sell you and I'm not against institutionalized education
But I'm just telling you a lot of this is in the mindset. So don't buy into that necessarily you are a life expert, okay?
We're moving on
Before I irritate too many people so basically it comes down to this here folks
Experts are human. I know you didn't know that you're probably questioning
You're probably in disbelief right now that I even made that statement like how can Alan make that statement that experts are
Human I thought they're gods
But they're not they're prone to the same cognitive biases as anyone else think about it
What makes someone better than the other person that doesn't really make nobody's better than anybody?
It really comes down to how much training that person has and that person still is subject to biases
They are swayed in many different reasons cognitively which can affect their decision-making thus affect their expert advice, okay?
So before we even get into all of this here, I want to be able to explain to you what a cognitive bias is
So that you don't just look to me and say oh that makes sense when it really doesn't make sense at all
Okay, because I'm not an expert. I'm just somebody who does a lot of reading in psychology and human behavior and neuroscience
So that I can better understand our own behavior as humans and in our own realities and you know
Fictional realities and and things that are made up and that we follow blindly for no reason
Cognitive biases lead to illogical inferences about people and situations
Meaning they're often based on incomplete information or incorrect assumptions
How many times and and I know you do this because I do this too
Someone asked you a question. You don't want to look stupid you make up an answer or you give an answer
Which you think you're right, but you're not a hundred percent right, okay?
So that's incomplete information and sometimes you're making an incorrect assumptions
We see that a lot about politics these days people don't know the back story of anything and they just make an assumption
Those are all biases and experts do the same thing and here's another thing about biases
They take advantage of the brain's heuristics, which means their mental shortcut
So we have these mental shortcuts that are part of our human nature. It's part of our evolution
So that we can survive out in the wild if you see for example out you're in the
You know the the desert or the jungles and you're an early human and you see a bush rustling
Your heuristics the shortcut is gonna be that's danger run get out of here. I don't want to get eaten
Okay, so we still we still
Maintain that and our thinking and these heuristics that we use to make our decisions often lead to errors and judgment
So basically it comes down to this here cognitive biases are basically
going to be simplified ways of
Synthesizing or breaking down complex processes information processing in the brain and there's a lot of biases
And there's a lot of biases a lot of fallacies and in thinking in argumentation
We'll get into some of those and especially how they impact but our brain basically attempts as I said to simplify
complex processes of information so that we can save mental resources and
Oftentimes we're not right and experts are the same thing even though an expert might have done it over and over and over again to
To learn something they're not always correct
They're still subject to these biases and the reason they're subject to these biases is because by cognitive biases are influenced by emotions
social influence your social gathering around you and any inherent limitations in our information processing capacity
So if we have limitations in processing our information for whatever reason
That also impacts our decision-making. So let me say this again
Cognitive biases are influenced by our emotions
social influence the people around us that influence us and
They are impacted by the inherent limitations of our own information process
processing capacity
So I want to give you a quick example. Let's say you are an expert in
Strategic military operations and you're on the American side US side
We are fighting a war with Russia and let's say for example a top
Military leader sleeps and falls in love with a Russian woman. He is now
Socially influenced by his emotions romantic connection to this woman
Anything is possible in his judgment. Any error is possible at this point is what I'm trying to say to you
So experts fall under the same category as we all do. Okay, so we can take it a step further
We can just simply blanket statement and say that experts are subjected to all the biases which
Everybody on this planet are subject to and that's a true statement
But there's a German neuroscientist Ethel drawer who's done research on cognitive biases in expert decision-making
He's actually identified
Six fallacies that hinder a fair assessment of expert conclusions. I
Mean, these are six fallacies cognitive biases that are very specific to how experts make decisions that impact their decisions
Let's quickly go through drawers fallacies
So we have a foundation of biases that impact the decision-making of experts and their outcomes the ethical issues fallacy
Basically, this fallacy is the belief that biases are a matter of personal integrity and only affect corrupt or unscrupulous
individuals it incorrectly assumes that biases are exclusively ethical problems rather than cognitive ones
So what does that mean? So basically the ethical issues fallacy is
About the individual who thinks they're the expert, but that their decisions are not
Impacted by any ball any fallacy or bias because that is left to unscrupulous nefarious
Bad characters, you know individuals, but unfortunately for them. It's a cognitive problem not a bad person problem
So again, it comes back to the brain the thinking the bad apples fallacy
So this is an interesting fallacy in that it suggests that biases occur only to people due to
Incompetence and only happens to experts who do not know how to do their job properly
How many times have you heard that where someone says oh, they don't know how to do their job?
Or they don't know what they're doing or they don't know what they're talking about and they're the self-proclaimed experts or they think they've been
Ordained an expert by some institution
But in reality that the bad apples fallacy fails to recognize the expert
Accusing the other experts so to speak of not knowing how to do their job
So therefore what they're saying should be voided the problem with that kind of thinking is that the person?
Or the individual or the so-called expert calling out the other person that they don't know their job
They fail to recognize that even highly competent experts can be affected by biases
so in other words I
Can be out there and say oh so and so doesn't know what he's talking about
He doesn't know how to do his job properly anyway
Look at he made a mistake and I'm going to make the assumption that because he doesn't know how to do his job. He's not an expert
He doesn't know what he's talking about thus I do however the case is that biases impact
Everybody regardless of level of expertise and that's the bad apples fallacy. I hope I explain that to you correctly
I'm gonna have all these on my show notes on my website Alan Stafford comm so you can always go over there look under podcasts
And then show notes and then you'll see I'll have this whole list for you
Then there's your expert immunity fallacies, which is the fallacy that basically states experts are impartial and not affected by biases because
They are competent at their jobs, so we're just gonna assume that they're competent because they're experts
And again this fallacy overlooks the fact that biases can impact anyone regardless of their level of expertise
Do we see a do we see a theme going here a
trend and how these biases in decision-making work that basically the leader doesn't think they're
Fallible because they're the expert but everyone else doesn't know what they're talking about and therefore they're not the expert
But yet when in reality the bias
affects everybody
Doesn't just affect them or the other person and then drawers forth identified decision-making fallacy as a technological protection fallacy
This is the assumption that the use of technology
instrumentation automation or artificial intelligence can guarantee protection from human biases and here's the funny part though if you're an expert
Making the assumption that AI or some sort of technology is infallible
Think about this for a second. Isn't technology and AI created by man who's fallible himself
I mean think about it
So the AI is only as good as the human inputting the information and that human is subject to biases
So again that doesn't pan out either for experts
You have the bias blind spot fallacy and this is one of my favorites. I'll tell you why because this fallacy is of the assumption that while
Other experts may be affected by bias your own judgment is not subject to the same biases like oh
They're biased on that side of the newsroom, but us we're not biased. That's the bias blind spot fallacy
I like that one and that one you see a lot that one's real evident when someone comes out and says to you. Yeah, they're biased
You know what the underlying assumption there is is that I'm not biased, but they're biased
So you should listen to me and discount what they have to say and basically
The the bias blind spot fallacy is really a result of one's own lack of awareness or self-awareness
Regarding their own vulnerabilities to bias, you know, people don't like to admit that they're wrong
They don't want to admit that they've biased. You'll hear people. I'm not biased. I don't judge blah blah blah
None of that is true folks
You're not gonna escape that when I hear that the first thing that goes up red flag
They're starting to you know gaslight me or trying to trying to be asked me and that should be the same thing that goes up
With you a traffic light should open your head red light stop. Let's question this are they really unbiased because that's impossible
Are they really lack of judgment? That's impossible
You know, these are these should be these thoughts should be going through your mind and then finally drawers final identified fallacy for
Expert decision-making or cognitive biases and expert decision-making is the illusion of control fallacy
And this is an incorrect belief that one can control and manage all aspects of their decision-making process to eliminate bias
Basically it underestimates the subtle ways in which biases can influence judgment
sometimes and a lot of times people are not aware of the biases that impact their judgment their decision-making this is some of this is
Some of this stuff is subconscious going on behind the scenes of your of your conscious mind
so after going through the fallacies and especially
The six specific fallacies that drawers research dug up on expert decision-making
I guess the question is should we even listen to experts and if so when should we listen to them?
I'll tell you what we'll find out when we come back
Okay, so should you listen to an expert?
Well, you know, here's the thing. I don't want you to think I'm bashing experts. I'm not what I'm simply doing is trying to help you
Better understand and think clearer and be able to question experts
So that you can get a better decision for yourself or make a better decision or choice for yourself regardless of whether it's medical or
religious even or
Scientific mechanical whatever the reason is that you're going to go to somebody who possesses more knowledge
Than you in that subject matter that you know how to question them
And that you understand that they're subject to the same biases as everyone else is and only what makes them an expert is that the fact that
They spent some time studying a lot more or a little bit more than what you already know
On the subject so when do we listen to experts?
I also want to share with you a story and this is where I'm torn. I believe in doctors
But I don't believe in doctors at the same time
Even though they spent many years in medical school
They're subject to the same biases as we are and they make
Poor decisions from time to time. Let me give you a story here my own father about a year ago
I get a call saying that he has a week left to die. He has a high blood pressure
All saying that he has a week left to die. He has a high atl hernia and I'm not going to get into the whole medical history of it
but
Basically the doctor says he has less than a week to die before he aspirates and
Basically can't breathe on his own anymore to make a long story short in that sense
He didn't die after a week the doctor was adamant no matter how often we asked the doctor are you still sure and he says yes
I'm absolutely sure as it turns out fast forward over a year later
Okay, now we're over a year later. My dad slips and fall going out to his truck mind you he's 79 years old
He's going out to his truck
He slips and fall and again crushes his chest ends up in the hospital the emergency room intensive care and the doctor in there
They were prepping me saying that basically if they pull the tube
That he was intubated if they pulled the breathing tube that he would die
He can't breathe on his own and so I was left to have to make that decision
But as it turned out my father came to and he was able to sign language saying he did not want the tube pulled
Which is probably a good thing because fast forward four months later after the doctor said he only had a week to live
Then he's still he's still alive and kicking without a tube in his throat
So my point is the doctors don't know everything just like the lawyers don't know everything there are lawyers who lose cases
There are doctors who lose patients who misdiagnose there are crisis communicators
Who fail at their job and they're the so-called expert take for instance the wildfire that happened on
Maui in Hawaii back in
2023 last year here you had multiple fires weather conditions that exacerbated the fires that grew them together
Eventually leading down to Lahaina the little town of Lahaina on the coast there
Killing over a hundred people
The takeaway from this here is the experts failed
to initiate an early warning system as well as
Residents claiming they heard no information about what to do or where to go and these are your experts folks
I mean what are they doing inside their expert office?
I mean are they sitting there playing backgammon all day long?
No, they're in there probably not making right decisions. They don't know what to do
Because this is probably a situation that's never occurred before so their expertise is limited to what they've done or studied in the past
But nothing of this magnitude so again leads people to think that experts will know every situation when they really don't know every situation
But that's but that's not to say that we don't need expert advice and now you're probably confused
It's like what is he saying is he saying don't listen to experts or is he saying listen to experts?
What I'm telling you is to approach and we'll get into this here in a little bit
about
How to question experts and what to what to look for but right now?
I'm just giving you some background information on
What an expert is and that they are fallible just like everybody else and that the only thing that makes them an expert is
The extra knowledge that they have and they're not always right
They don't always make good sound decisions because their decisions are plagued by biases which are driven by emotion and societal pressure
Or influences but having said that when when do we want to listen to an expert when they have specialized knowledge?
I'm not gonna go to medical school so I can operate on myself or a family member
So I'm going to I'm going to defer to a doctor
But I'm also gonna question the doctor but expert advice is essential
Or you should be listening to experts where they possess specialized knowledge
I mean in critical fields that require specialized knowledge beyond beyond basically the grasp of just the average layperson
And I'm talking medical legal and advanced scientific research
Again, it doesn't mean that they're right when they speak all the time
It just means that they have more advanced knowledge than you do and you probably want to take into consideration
What they're saying but then again always verify the facts when I talk about specialized knowledge
I'm talking about complex decision-making again like experts in in the medical field that are making medical diagnosis
Well, I don't know about the doctors that diagnose and it's two separate doctors. It's not the same one that diagnosed my dad
Maybe they need to go back to medical school
Maybe they just looked at him as an old man who smoked his whole life and realized that he's done
I mean that could be it. They could have had biases against a smoker. He used he used to be a smoker
So I mean they could have had a bias against that thinking oh well
I've seen this case before I'm gonna base it on the last case. I had even though not two people are alike
I'm just gonna say he's gone or so. I mean it could be a variable of reasons
It could be a variable of reasons why they made that decision
But again, it was a poor decision and it comes from experts and here's one
I grapple with from time to time listening to experts when they're making policy and practice like in public health
I mean we saw that with COVID all the experts. We were we were
We as the public was thrashed back and forth on what to do what not to do talk about the chaos and decision making
One side one to stick bleach and bleach inside of you the other side
Wanda keep you inside all the time who knew what to do?
I mean we were all going through this together
The experts were trying their best and yet I believe they failed many people
But now we know if we had that same scenario what we should do
We didn't know it then because we were looking at something from a hundred years ago
You know the the first flu outbreak but times have changed people are different the populations greater the economy is different
So you can't take that information and say oh everybody quarantine
You should do it too because it takes the economy and I'm not saying that's the wrong thing or the right thing to do because I don't know
But what I'm telling you is the experts don't always have the answer either
So I guess I guess it comes down to walking a fine line between
Accepting what the expert says and then verifying it now. There are people who just flat out
Discount or ignore what the expert says there are people that I know personally that think doctors are wackos
That they don't know what they're talking about and yet
They're the ones who think they know what they're talking about because they do some research on YouTube videos or they do some research on
Some website Bob's medical advice and then they come up with this information and they go
Well, the doctor doesn't know what he's talking about because I'm using all kinds of supplements and stuff and I had cancer and I cured cancer when they never even
Had the cancer or there's not even verifiable
So you have that side of the spectrum tuned that's that's another extreme
So there's one side where you just don't believe anybody and think they're all wackos and you're the smart one or you the other side where you just
Don't believe every expert never question it and
Folks you need to be somewhere in the middle if you want to be smart about it
You need to be somewhere in the middle and you need to be
Questioning when the experts give you advice so as an example in medical advice get a second third or fourth opinion
It's customary to get a second opinion. Once you agree third opinion even fine
Hey, if you want to go all out get a fourth opinion, but I'd say throw in a fifth so you have an odd number
So it'll be three to two, you know, okay, I'll take the majority there on that operation. Thank you
Yeah, I don't know if it works that way, but at least you get different opinions
So I hope I've made myself clear in a sense of when you should seek out an expert and that is again when they have specialized knowledge
But it doesn't mean to take their word at heart. It doesn't mean discount it either right away
It just means listen to what they have to say they have the background in that information
but get another opinion on
Their expertise regardless of whether it's an auto mechanic a
Lawyer because some lawyers will say yeah, you could see them the other one say no, you can't sue them same thing with a doctor
Yeah, we can operate. No, we can't operate. You know type of thing. So so far
We've discussed experts and how they make mistakes yet possess advanced knowledge on subject matter that most of us do not have
so far we've talked about
Experts their subject their subject to cognitive biases like everybody else they make mistakes
But we do need to defer to them in certain situations such as that specialized knowledge
but again, we want to make sure that we're
Always on guard and questioning the experts and not just taking their word for it because sometimes
You know, they may be having a bad day
I don't know or they may just not be up on the latest research or techniques or or whatever might be going on in their field
And make a bad decision. They may be just having a heck of a week
Maybe they got in fight with their wife or their spouse or husband or whatever they are
So the takeaway I want you to have from this segment here is you know when we approach expert advice
We need to do so with caution. Okay, just don't take it as that's the gospel and even you shouldn't take the gospel as the gospel
And when we decide to take experts advice
As I said, we need to approach it with caution and there are a few ways that we can do that
So what we want to do is approach it with skepticism and critical thinking
We want to evaluate expert opinions with both of these skepticism and critical thinking skills
We want to question their assumptions
So for skeptical it encourages us to question the underlying assumption behind their opinion the expert's opinion
Our skepticism allows us to approach the topic
critically helping us uncover any potential biases or flaws in their reasoning. I mean
There's always flaws in every reasoning
And so when we uncover these flaws when we when we're skeptical we uncover these flaws
It basically leads to a deeper understanding of the issue that they're discussing or that the issue at hand whatever that issue might be
whether it be medical
Scientific political religious. I mean now religion set aside. That's a belief system
You know if you want to believe in that go for it. That's that's all on you and I have no problem with that
But if you're gonna say that that is the truth then now we're gonna have to argue if you can say that the
Pastors an expert and he's saying this the truth now we're gonna have a discussion about that because
I have a different opinion a different view on this stuff and
a reason a lot of people don't question
Experts is because it requires evaluating the evidence you have to actually do a little bit of digging yourself
You have to do a little bit of the work you have to do a little bit of the work yourself
And as a result it's time-consuming and it hurts your brain folks. It does
At any given day our brain our three pound brain
Which is the average weight for the brain? Process is about 70,000 thoughts
70,000 thoughts each day using over a hundred billion neurons that connect more than 500 trillion points
through our synapses in our brain
They travel 300 miles an hour that
Exhaust people folks. So the more you think the more tired and exhausting your brain gets
Have you ever come home from working just exhausted?
You want to sit down have a beer or coffee or something like that?
Have a beer or cup of coffee?
Well, maybe not a coffee a tea a drink something watch some boob tube TV pointless TV reality show and just go to bed or
Really do nothing well
That's probably because you've been thinking all day long and you need to shut yourself down
So that's the reason why people have a hard time evaluating because they have to spend that time thinking they have to spend the time researching
And then the exhaustive
Journey of actually going through the thought process of trying to figure things out
So when you approach an expert and I say approaching with skepticism and critical thinking
Evaluating evidence is time-consuming, but if you really want to get to the bottom of it
Are they telling you the truth? Do they know what they're talking about?
Is there another approach another solution instead of what they're offering?
You're gonna need to dig a little deeper folks and being a skeptic doesn't mean necessarily being someone who just completely
Rejects everything it's more of an approach to questioning to verify
Because being a skeptic because skepticism aids in identifying and basically mitigating personal and professional biases in all expert reasoning
It recognizes these biases as crucial for maintaining the objectivity and making those informed decisions
So skepticism
being a skeptic is
good when you're questioning
experts
Or questioning anything for that matter. I mean, I'm a skeptic sometimes. I'm a over
Sometimes I'm overly skeptic. I just question everything. I've been known to do that and I've been accused of doing that
I question the questioner
but but that's me because
My ultimate goal is to get down to the bottom
Closest to the truth is possible and then when I say closest to the truth because we don't ever know what the truth is
We will never know what the truth is all we can do is say we think this based on this study
But again, it's not conclusive because we really don't know and then here's a big one here confirmation bias
You've probably heard of confirmation bias confirmation bias
Effects almost everybody. I mean we see that in politics
We see the right. We see the left. They seek out like-minded news media to confirm their already
existing irrational belief, but confirmation bias has an impact on experts as well and in the way it does that in
How it affects experts is that confirmation bias basically leads experts to seek out information that
Aligned with their existing beliefs or hypothesis potentially overlooking any data that might contradict their view
So they'll be out there seeking
Information that fits their narrative that happens a lot look at these so-called unbiased studies
When we talk about let's say the impact of sugar on the human body
Who's that study done by sometimes a soda or a candy company? Yeah, it's a little biased if you ask me
I'm not gonna buy into that because they're trying to say sugar is good for you and buy more candy and eat more candy kids and adults
I
Don't know about you, but I love sweets. I try to curb the sweets, but the candy and the ice cream man
I love that stuff and to me. It's a drug. I mean they get you hooked you're addicted to you like oh
Give me some more ice cream. Give me some more candy
Pretty soon you're strewn out on the bed passed out because you you're on your your highs coming down
and another thing that
confirmation bias
Plays into is that these experts their interpretation can be influenced by their beliefs?
I mean they may interpret ambiguous or conflicting data in ways that supports their
preconceptions which basically skews our analysis and their conclusions and cognitive biases in
Decision-making can lead to overconfidence in expert judgments. This what this does is causes them to give undue
Weight to evidence that supports their belief and underweight evidence that does not
So what are we saying about all of this information? We're talking about approaching
experts with caution being skeptical
question their assumptions
Evaluate their evidence
identify their biases and understand that they are
Subject confirmation bias just like you and I because if you here's here's a little lesson for you
Why don't you go out or stay in whatever you're doing?
If you're driving keep driving, but um, but why don't you?
Listen to the news
Listen to a right-wing news station and then listen to a left-wing news station
I'm talking a Republican a Democrat a Maga or whatever you want to call it a progressive whatever they call them nowadays
Listen to them. You'll see on the right. They're supporting right issues and their people on the right are going. Yes, that's right
That's right. I agree that oh, yeah, perfect because they're feeding to that psyche
They're confirming what that person already
Has an assumption to believe and it may not be true, but they're just buying into it the same thing on the left
Oh, yeah, we'll let these people over the border and blah blah and whatever else is going on
Watch the news begin to listen to it critically like that
You'll begin to see that they're pandering to that audience and
Confirmation bias is rampant on both sides when we come back
We're going to discuss the limitations of expert teasers or experts the limitations of experts. We're gonna talk about
Some experts and the mistakes their mishaps that they've done as well as how to evaluate expert advice and that's coming up
Okay, so far we've talked about cognitive biases and fallacies
In expert opinions and advice things that basically make them human like everyone else remember
Experts are no different than you and I they just have a little bit more education or a little bit more knowledge in a certain subject matter area
Sometimes a lot more
information
I'm not don't want to underplay or undermine experts by any stretch of the imagination
But again, the whole point is that they're human that we've been sold as bill of good that we should listen to experts when in fact
we should always be questioning
experts in
Getting more information and dive in deeper into what they're telling us to see if it's true or not, but there are limitations of expertise
And one of them is outdated information
Talk about the technology sector. I mean information AI
All that stuff changes rapidly even in the medical field. What about food?
How many times have you heard eggs are bad for you eggs are good for you eggs are bad for you eggs are good for you
I don't even know where we stand with eggs anymore, but the bottom the bottom line is
You know information is outdated. It gets
Restudied new studies come in something else pops up. So you have to have an expert who's staying on top of this
So when I went to USC, I remember a university professor in the department the industrial engineering department in which I worked for a few hours a week
Was getting booted and the reason why it was because he wasn't publishing enough now
I understand that's probably a standard practice across
Many universities and colleges and the point of that matter is to publish you have to do research
You have to understand and continue and stay on top of your field and if you're not doing that
Well, you're becoming outdated and that is one of the challenges the limitations of expertise is that information
Becomes outdated and they don't stay on top of that
So one of the things you want to do is question an expert, you know
Even doctors doctors are not always up on top of stuff. They're doing the same old things saying the same old people month after month
Day after day week after week whenever after whenever and they're not always staying on top of their practice
Now I'm sure that medical facilities
Require their doctors to take seminars or to stay on top of the research and again
I can't say that with any certainty, but I'm assuming that that's I hope they do that if not then that's not very good
So basically what I'm saying is experts need to be lifelong learners. They need to be in front of that computer or in front of that book or in front of that
Seminar and constantly learning new advancements in their field to stay on top of things and again
We beat this up in the first part of our podcast biases
taken to consideration a
doctor we're gonna we're gonna play religion real quick a doctor
raised in a Islamic country comes to the United States
where religion is
basically
Free to practice whatever religion you want to believe in but we mainly
Follow a Christian background for a lot of people or we have values that are
Opposite of Islamic values
How do you think this doctor is gonna react in a country where he was brought up Islamic?
He is Islamic and his beliefs are very conservative and now he has to practice or now
He's chosen to practice in America
Where our freedoms are much greater than they have especially the freedom of women in this country
Whereas they don't have that in a lot of those Islamic countries in the Middle East that impacts
The expert his personal biases can influence his judgment in his decisions
I don't know what they're taught overseas and I again. I'm not saying that they're teaching them bad
I'm just saying that they come from different cultures different ideologies and those carry over biases and that's the bottom line
That's what I'm just trying to thrust at you right now is that other cultures other religions or all religions
They all carry their own set of standards for how life should be how people should live their life
Well, when you take that you mix that with another culture another religion another belief system
You might run into problems with bias on that doctor or on that mechanic or on that
clergyman or on that teacher
So there's a lot to consider so knowing where your educator comes from or your doctor comes from can help you
When they give you an answer and you're not happy with that answer you can simply go. I mean don't go. Oh, you're Islamic
So therefore your decision sucks. No, that's not what I'm saying
I'm saying taking the consideration to conservative. They're very conservative religious upbringing if that's how they are
And that's all and what about organizational interest take a look at the Supreme Court? Supreme Court is heavily weighted
Republican versus Democrat when they overturn row versus Wade and again, I'm not a lawyer
I don't play one on a podcast and I don't play one on TV and I don't definitely play one in life, but
It does have an impact on their decision
Because for decades we didn't overturn row versus Wade and all of a sudden you get a
Conservative Supreme Court in there and that's their biases that interpret the law which overturns
But we already had in place
So folks these are all things that come into play when experts give you advice and I don't want you to be blindsided by this
I don't want you to realize. Oh wait a second. They know what they're talking about. No question everything question
Everything from experts all the way on down. We should question everything from non expert
They just don't know what they're talking about period
And then there's a limited scope of expertise. I mean experts typically operate in niches, right?
You know the the NASA expert the
Mission control specialist doesn't go out and operate on people
So there's there's limitations and expertise. They might be a scientist, but they can't talk about necessarily
gemology, you know or medical science in that in that effect. So don't let the doctor
Title or even even the title of engineer
Sway you and make you think that oh, they're an expert in everything that way. Let me give you another case in point
There was there was several years ago. Maybe 10 years ago. There was a product on the market and this product was called
Cortisol or something like that there what it basically did was block cortisol. It was supposed to it didn't do that
It was a scam
But they would always reference the doctor and I forget the doctor's name, but they'd always reference him
When you saw the direct mail piece it said doctor, but it was a PhD
doctor in sports science
It had nothing to do with health and fitness and diet
Well fitness maybe a little bit on the sports side, but it had nothing to do with the human body and diet
It was very misleading, but they used the doctor title to help sell this product which they ended up getting sued for
So again because you're a doctor and one thing doesn't make you knowledgeable in everything
So there is a limited scope of expertise and don't forget about pressure from external forces or systems or policymakers
I mean we see this a lot in the government see this a lot in law
We see those a lot with family members and they're not even I mean they're experts in their own families, but we see
Pressure from external sources
Constantly and you might feel this way yourself. You might be an expert in accounting
But you might feel the pressure from your boss to cook the books. I'm not saying you are
But I'm saying that pressure exists your boss might come up and say something like hey if we don't do that
You know, we may not have a company next week
You know like oh, how should I take that?
So you there's this pressure from external sources that plague experts as well
And then here's another one academia and practitioner are two different things. You can have an academic
Talk about marketing for example my field for the last 30 years
But if he's never been in the field
What does he actually know about being a practitioner about being someone in the field that's actually applying these theories and education on marketing?
They don't know much about that. They just go this is the theory. This is how you basically market to this audience
This is what you need to do
But when you get into the mix and you're out there in the field you realize no my 30 years says we don't do that because it doesn't
Work with this audience so basically some of these experts just rely on theoretical knowledge and that's all it is
It's theoretical knowledge
It has no application in the practical world
It doesn't work sometimes and so you can't go based on what they're saying if all they do is practice theory
Basically academia or their academics and this is something good to listen to when you were listening to the news
The news is a great place that brings in their quote-unquote expert advisors from all walks or from all different careers and
Industries and yet if they bring in someone heavily academic
They're giving you basically a lot of theory folks if they bring in someone that's strictly politics and they try to
Analyze something that's out of their realm. They're just guessing at it or given their best knowledge of it
They don't really have the expertise in that so again the question comes up
Why should you believe them?
Why should you buy into it?
There's there's a whole list of limitations for experts, you know from information constraints time constraints
You know practical implications strategies to manage bonded
Rationality there's all kinds of things that get real complicated
What I want you to take away from all of this is that people that proclaim themselves experts or people that are experts proclaimed by some
institutional piece of paper like a degree or
experience are
Not infallible. Okay, they are
Part of the human gene pool and they too make mistakes and they too need to be questioned
Okay, so I'm afraid to ask this question, but do you think experts make errors?
That's the whole point of the podcast right that they do that they're human that they're not some sort of God like in the sky
That's been ordained by the universe, you know and sent to us to save humanity
None of that exists
So we're gonna talk about some of the statistical errors that have been made by experts so that I can drive this point
Further with you that you understand that an expert is just another human being with a little bit more education
That's injecting their theoretical
understanding their
interpretation and or a whole host of
Other criteria that lead them to their decision that may or may not be correct
And I've already given you a story a couple of stories about that
One was my father and the doctors the other was the crisis communicators in Hawaii on the Hawaiian fire in 2023 on
Maui, did you know in the medical field error rates and tissue diagnosis of cancer could be as high as 15%
It's very challenging in clinical diagnosis of malignancy
I mean even in primary care the solo practice solo practicing doctors in primary care
One in every 1000 primary care visits results in a preventable harm now while the number might not seem very high
The fact that it occurs should be disturbing to you
I mean are you playing roulette with your life when you're not asking the questions? I think you are I
Think you're rolling the dice sometimes and thinking I'm gonna be okay when you might be that number one person out of the thousand
Or you might be part of the 15% of the misdiagnosed and let's talk about forensic science
How many people are in prison that have been wrongly accused of the crime?
I mean research has found key areas within the forensic science
Associated with higher rates of wrongful convictions. I mean this is forensic science folks
I mean with errors not only in identification or classification by forensic scientists, but also
Due to the incompetent or fraudulent examiners and their organizational deficiencies. It's not a secret
See if someone says that they don't lie if someone says that they they're not mistaken if someone says they have perfect memory
This is all BS
We're all guilty of all of that lying being imperfect, you know making up stuff
You name it we try most of us try to be good humans
But in the end we are subject to bias and it does impact us
I mean even in data science the integrity of the data is question. I mean take a look at the Dana Faber
Cancer Institute they wanted to retract flawed studies after faulty data was discovered
I mean you've done studies and now you're gonna report these studies and you realize oh
We goofed. I mean, how does that impact? Who does that impact? How does it impact and they've done studies on spreadsheets called the spreadsheet errors
These studies report that nearly nine out of ten spreadsheets. That's 88 percent folks 88 percent contain errors with the majority of these errors
Being basically avoidable, you know, and they're stemming from human errors take a look at the human errors in an airplane crashes
That's a high number itself and making poor decisions
And these are experts flying planes
I mean, I don't see you know, Bob who just slammed a few beers at the bar waiting to get on this flight to
Hoboken, New Jersey
Take the cockpit unless he's the pilot in that case. I hope he's not drinking any beers or anything
And if we take a look at human error rate tables typical failure rates in business
Using common work practices range from 10 to 30 errors per hundred opportunities
People in business. We're talking executives. We're talking office workers. These are supposed to be professionals experts in their field and again
The error rates are high. So basically these statistics and the studies
They demonstrate that errors among experts are basically wide for a widespread, you know, they're not just
One or two people doing it in one or two places in one country or two countries. This is widespread across the globe folks
Okay, folks, so this brings us to this segment of the podcast and that is how do we evaluate expert advice?
We've talked a lot about how experts are like everyone else. They possess a little bit more knowledge
Sometimes a lot more knowledge
But in the end, they're not perfect and their decisions are not always sound
So how do we evaluate them when we're being told something by an expert?
How do we decide that what they're telling us is actually the truth and not because they're trying to mislead us?
Maybe they're trying to manipulate us or maybe they just don't know the information themselves and they don't want to they want to save face
So to speak or maybe they just don't stay up with the information or maybe they're just got a lot of personal biases
Involved in their decision-making process. Maybe it's cultural. Maybe it's personal. Maybe it's, you know, religious
I don't I don't know but I'm gonna give you some tips on how to evaluate the expert
So the next time that you're out there and you're getting advice
In the back of your head, you should be going. Let me let me research this. Let me find this out
Let me see if this is an actual truth. Let me get another opinion
And the first way to do that is to verify their credentials or our expertise. It's a very simple way
You know, if you if you go to a doctor, what medical school did they go to now?
That's not gonna make a big deal of difference, but it's it's gonna help because not all medical schools are created equal
And I'm not expecting you to know which ones are or not
But at least verify the fact that they went to medical school and in what country did they go to a medical school?
And how much experience do they have is are they out out of residency and they just have a few years under their belt?
Have they been doing it for 20 30 years if they've been doing it for 20 30 years that doesn't necessarily mean
That they're good at what they're doing. They could be stale too
So these are things you want to evaluate
Seek a second opinion if you're out on an auto mechanic and the guy says
You know, you take your car in and he says, oh, you need a water pump a radiator and a whole bunch of other things
Say, you know, that's really great. I'd like to take it down to
The southern mechanic down here and have him take a look at it. You may need three mechanics
Don't take it to your brother Bob's friends
Uncle's neighbor who says he's a mechanic. Okay
Well, I don't know. He might be a mechanic
You might take it to him for a while
You might take it to him first and then go get your advice
On your second or third opinion
If someone gives you a source or someone gives you a study evaluate that source, who did the study?
I mean, if it's a study on like I said earlier sugar is it being
Sponsored and funded by a company that sells products that are made of sugar
I mean, if it is it's it's heavily biased. They want to sell more sugar
So always evaluate the source and the references and understand the consensus
Is there an overwhelming consensus? I don't know that that's actually always the true thing though
Because if we take religion you have a large consensus of people who believe in religion regardless of the faith
It doesn't necessarily make it true because there's no scientific evidence to support that and that's a whole different topic for a whole different podcast
That we'll get into sometime in the future
but right now
What I'm saying is
Consensus, I don't know that I will 100% agree with that that that's a good way to
To to determine but if you have a few people out there just a few people saying hey
You know this new elixir works and 99% of the people say no it doesn't I probably would go with the 99% in this case
Religion is kind of divided. I mean you got you got some on one side and others on the other side
So that's that's a whole different topic. We'll get into that later. Like I said
analyze the presentation the information that you're gathering or that they're the uh
The expert is presenting to you. Are they presenting it?
You know as expert advice, are they giving you to you in a very, you know, reliable very chronological
systematic organized fashion
Are they providing you with evidence?
For their claims are they walking you through how they came up with that conclusion?
These are all things you want to ask and want to see if it's present
When they're presenting to you when they say many people okay, well, what are these many peoples have where's the study at?
Oh, well, we don't have the study. It's just we know a lot of people
Well, I know a lot of people too and so you probably know a lot of people too
But that doesn't mean that what they're saying is true. So you always want to analyze the presentation and the information
Check for conflicts of interest, you know, is are they being supported? Are there financial incentives?
For example, Chief Justice Clarence Thomas taking all those vacations and not reporting the paola
I mean, there's a conflict of interest right there. So if he's gonna push an agenda or push
Or side with a bill or something
You know, well, you don't know you never know but chances are he could be a little biased
Because of the conflict of interest because of he might side in the favor and this is just a wild guess or an assumption
And an example, but he could side with the people that support him financially when he's not reporting it
And folks always check multiple sources
I mean if information you're seeking is found in multiple credible sources, then the chances are
You're probably on the right trail
The information is probably valid
Again, this is a gray area as well
However, you don't want to just go to one source and simply say, oh
I heard it from this source. It must be true. Again, that goes back to confirmation bias
And you're only seeking out to confirm what you already believe in
So you're not really getting to the bottom of the the truth here or the information from the expert
You're just confirming what you already believe in and again
That's fine if that's where you want to be but don't call it the truth because it may not be the truth
It's just what you want to believe in and I'm okay with that if if that's all you want
But don't come out and say that's the absolute truth or that this expert's saying that and I believe him because that's the only source
I listen to because that's not true. Okay
Okay, folks, what did we learn today? What did we learn today?
We learned that experts are no different than you and I with a little bit more knowledge
In that subject matter area and they are susceptible to all the cognitive rules in which everyone on this planet every human being is subject to
So with that
question
The expert verify their source their data
Understand their biases if they have any where they where they practiced or studied or the whole host of reasons I've given in this show
Inform yourself empower yourself with knowledge and don't just accept the advice that you're given
Because you're told and taught at a young age that experts no better when in fact they probably don't
And they may just know a little bit more than you and with a little bit more study you'll probably become the expert to the expert
In the end and I encourage you
To approach expert advice with informed skepticism
and personal judgment
Question as I've said and if you have any
Key points if you have any pointers if you want to rebut what I'm saying feel free. I'm open for discussion
I enjoy
Open-minded discussion
You could find me on my youtube channel
at Alan staffer
Or my website, but if you want to do a dialogue I would gravitate towards youtube where I had this podcast
But also this podcast can be heard on multiple stations across the globe
So if you liked what you heard
If you want to enlighten yourself more
About the unnecessary scripts that were taught as kids to believe
In adulthood I encourage you to subscribe to my podcast on multiple platforms
Apple
Apple podcast spotify
Deezer
iHeartRadio
And everywhere that you like to listen to podcast. I'm alan stafford. I appreciate you listening to the show until next time. Stay skeptical
You