Comments on: Why Experts are Almost Always Wrong

By: Stephanie

Stephanie — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 00:09:59 +0000

We spend a tremendous amount of money trying to predict and prevent accidents, disasters, diseases, economic crises, etc. All because we live in a society that fixates on blame. When people suffer the consequences of “bad things” we want to say it’s someone’s fault and we must never allow this to happen again. So we throw more money into the belief that we can learn to prevent disaster. If we accepted bad outcomes, and spent the same money on mitigation and recovery, we could develop effective, robust responses to disaster and do so much more good.

By: Gary

Gary — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 22:27:59 +0000

I think the title of your article needs some clarification. This article seems to be tying experts in their field with prediction of the future. The title as now stated would lead one to not go to the doctor when sick. That would be seeking the input of an expert. Try doing brain surgery on your buddy and see how that works out.

By: sparcboy

sparcboy — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 20:56:48 +0000

This sure hits home with me. When I started working in the field of geophysics, I was asked to review some work by an individual that had 30 years experience. I found some glaring mistakes. When I pointed these out to my boss and commented about not being able to believe that someone with 30 years experience could make such mistakes, he said, “Some people have 3 years experience 10 times.”