Wrong: Why Experts Keep Failing Us and How to Know When Not to Trust Them
Our investments are devastated, obesity is epidemic, test scores are in decline, blue-chip companies circle the drain, and popular medications turn out to be ineffective and even dangerous. What happened? Didn't we listen to the scientists, economists and other experts who promised us that if we...
show more
Our investments are devastated, obesity is epidemic, test scores are in decline, blue-chip companies circle the drain, and popular medications turn out to be ineffective and even dangerous. What happened? Didn't we listen to the scientists, economists and other experts who promised us that if we followed their advice all would be well? Actually, those experts are a big reason we're in this mess. And, according to acclaimed business and science writer David H. Freedman, such expert counsel usually turns out to be wrongoften wildly so. Wrong reveals the dangerously distorted ways experts come up with their advice, and why the most heavily flawed conclusions end up getting the most attention-all the more so in the online era. But there's hope: Wrong spells out the means by which every individual and organization can do a better job of unearthing the crucial bits of right within a vast avalanche of misleading pronouncements.
show less
Format: Textbook
ISBN:
9780316023788 (0316023787)
ASIN: 9780316023788
Publish date: 10-06-2010
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Edition language: English
Perhaps this was a poor choice for me - I'm already inherently skeptical of the claims of experts. The author did reinforce my beliefs, but it didn't really sustain my interest over an entire book.
If you have ever wondered about what makes an expert, according to this book: not much. Just get yourself quoted in the media and suddenly, there you are, an expert. Wrong points out how the media, politics and medicine all use statistics to skew the numbers to how they need them to be. I really...