Wednesday, July 14, 2010

What passes for expert wisdom

I think new book “Wrong” - has lessons we can learn in the arts e.g. strategy and architecture.

Wrong: Why experts keep failing us – and how to know when not to trust them Scientists, finance wizards, doctors, relationship gurus, celebrity CEOs, ... consultants, health officials and more”

"Bad advice thrives in part because the public demands easy fixes that are “resonant, provocative and colorful.” “

I see this everyday in people who just want to believe a new silver bullet will work.

"Most of the expert errors ... are not intentional, but originate in the cognitive biases to which everyone is prone."

“Books written to hammer a single point are vulnerable to overstating their case ...”

Some who has a spent a decade or more focusing on some area (Six Sigma, Information Engineering, Process Modelling, UML etc.) wants to think the answer life in their silo.

"Thomas Kuhn showed some fifty years ago how the practices of scientific communities reinforce and perpetuate prevailing paradigms."

And in technology it is exacerbated by a marketing driven fashion industry - masquerading as an engineering discpline.

We see this in approaches that are not holistic and see the results in some new silver bullet.

“At any given time, a substantial number of our individual and shared beliefs about the causes of those effects are simply wrong....”

“... being right doesn’t matter as much as being accepted.”

This presents a conundrum for those seeking to assist people. Does one advocated accepted wisdom (knowing or sensing it is wrong). Or risk pointing the fallacies in the current think and risk alienating people. I guess it depends on ones views on professionalism i.e. if one professes to tell the truth; or seeks wealth and fame.

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