Think Critically About the Wisdom of Experts

Expert analysis informs the decisions we make as leaders and managers -- and in our everyday lives. We can't see red blood cells, but we trust scientists who say we have them and doctors who order blood tests to count them. We suspect that cognitive biases affect our choices, not because we have done the analysis ourselves, but because we believe social scientists who conduct experimental research. Much of our knowledge is ultimately garnered from the testimony of teachers, mentors, colleagues, and authors who write for publications like this one. Philosophers of science, who study this issue, generally recommend that we simply trust what we hear from well-credentialed people who seem competent and sincere. At each fork, the analysts must make an assumption that may influence the final outcome. One problematic and common type of assumption involves how to assign values to variables that cannot be measured directly.