It's Monday morning. In Washington, the president of the United States is sitting in the Oval Office, assessing whether or not to strike Al Qaeda in Yemen. At Number 10 Downing Street, David Cameron is trying to work out whether to cut more public sector jobs in order to stave off a double-dip recession. In Madrid, Maria Gonzalez is standing at the door, listening to her baby crying and crying, trying to work out whether she should let it cry until it falls asleep or pick it up and hold it. And I am sitting by my father's bedside in hospital, trying to work out whether I should let him drink the one-and-a-half-liter bottle of water that his doctors just came in and said, "You must make him drink today," -- my father's been nil by mouth for a week -- or whether, by giving him this bottle, I might actually kill him.
某個星期一早上 在華盛頓 美國總統 坐在白宮橢圓形辦公室裡 評估是否 要攻擊在葉門的 蓋達組織 在唐寧街十號 大衛卡麥隆(英國首相)試圖要理清 是否縮編公營事業的工作機會 以避免二次經濟衰退 在馬德里,一位叫做Maria Gonzalez的母親 站在門前 聽著她的嬰兒不停的哭 在想她該讓這孩子繼續哭 直到他睡去 還是該把他抱起來哄哄他 而我在醫院,坐在我父親的病床旁 正在想 我是否該讓他喝 這一瓶1.5公升的水 因為醫生進來說 "你今天一定要逼他喝" 我父親已經一星期無法進食了 如果我給他喝這瓶水 我會不會害死他
We face momentous decisions with important consequences throughout our lives, and we have strategies for dealing with these decisions. We talk things over with our friends, we scour the Internet, we search through books. But still, even in this age of Google and TripAdvisor and Amazon Recommends, it's still experts that we rely upon most -- especially when the stakes are high and the decision really matters. Because in a world of data deluge and extreme complexity, we believe that experts are more able to process information than we can -- that they are able to come to better conclusions than we could come to on our own. And in an age that is sometimes nowadays frightening or confusing, we feel reassured by the almost parental-like authority of experts who tell us so clearly what it is we can and cannot do.
我們面對很多重大的決定 而且結果都很重要 在我們的生活中 我們有策略去處理這些決定 我們和朋友討論 我們瀏覽網路 我們尋找書本 但是 在這個充斥 Google和TripAdvisor 還有Amazon推薦的時代 專家依然是 我們最常依賴的對象 特別是當風險很高 需要做重大決定的時候 因為有大量的數據 和極端的複雜性 我們相信專家 比我們自己更能夠處理這些資訊 他們比較可以理出一個較好的結論 比我們自己理出的結論還要好 這個時代 現在有時令人感到害怕 有時感到困惑 而我們的安全感來自於 可靠的消息來源 就是專家 他們能清楚的告訴我們 什麼可以做,什麼不能做
But I believe that this is a big problem, a problem with potentially dangerous consequences for us as a society, as a culture and as individuals. It's not that experts have not massively contributed to the world -- of course they have. The problem lies with us: we've become addicted to experts. We've become addicted to their certainty, their assuredness, their definitiveness, and in the process, we have ceded our responsibility, substituting our intellect and our intelligence for their supposed words of wisdom. We've surrendered our power, trading off our discomfort with uncertainty for the illusion of certainty that they provide. This is no exaggeration. In a recent experiment, a group of adults had their brains scanned in an MRI machine as they were listening to experts speak. The results were quite extraordinary. As they listened to the experts' voices, the independent decision-making parts of their brains switched off. It literally flat-lined. And they listened to whatever the experts said and took their advice, however right or wrong.
但我認為 這是一個大問題 因為這樣的後果充滿潛在的危險 對我們的社會 我們的文化 還有個人都有影響 專家並不是 沒有為這個世界做出重大貢獻 當然,他們貢獻許多 問題是在我們 我們盲從專家的意見 我們盲從他們的絕對性 他們的自信 他們的確定性 在此過程中 我們交出了自己的責任 讓他們取代我們的智慧 還有我們的資訊解讀能力 只為了盲從他們所謂的有智慧的話 我們把自己的能力交付出去 企圖把我們自己 因為不確定發生的不安 換成一種確定性的錯覺 由專家提供的錯覺 這絕不是誇張 在最近一個實驗裡 我們將一群成年人 利用核磁共振造影器去掃描他們的大腦 掃描同時,他們聆聽專家說話 結果令人相當意想不到 當他們聽到專家的聲音 他們大腦裡負責做重要決定的區塊 沒有在作用 呈現平靜的腦波 不管專家說什麼他們都聽 都參考他們的意見,不管對錯
But experts do get things wrong. Did you know that studies show that doctors misdiagnose four times out of 10? Did you know that if you file your tax returns yourself, you're statistically more likely to be filing them correctly than if you get a tax adviser to do it for you? And then there's, of course, the example that we're all too aware of: financial experts getting it so wrong that we're living through the worst recession since the 1930s. For the sake of our health, our wealth and our collective security, it's imperative that we keep the independent decision-making parts of our brains switched on. And I'm saying this as an economist who, over the past few years, has focused my research on what it is we think and who it is we trust and why, but also -- and I'm aware of the irony here -- as an expert myself, as a professor, as somebody who advises prime ministers, heads of big companies, international organizations, but an expert who believes that the role of experts needs to change, that we need to become more open-minded, more democratic and be more open to people rebelling against our points of view. So in order to help you understand where I'm coming from, let me bring you into my world, the world of experts.
但專家也會出錯的 你們知道嗎?有研究指出 醫生診斷時 每10次會發生4次誤診 你們知道嗎? 如果你自己申報納稅 統計上你比較可能 正確地填寫資料 比起一位稅務諮詢師 幫你填寫還要正確 然後當然還有這個例子 我們都很注意 財經專家 錯誤的解讀 導致我們正經歷自1930年代以來 最嚴重的經濟衰退 為了我們的健康 我們的財富 和我們共同的安全 我們必須保持 大腦獨立作決策的區塊 是在作用的 身為一位經濟學家我要說 在過去的幾年 我專注在我的研究 有關我們的思考 還有我們信任誰,為什麼信任他們 但是 我也意識到這有點諷刺 我自己身為一位專家、 一位教授、 一位會提供首相建議、 給公司老闆建議、 提供國際組織建議的人 但我也相信 專家的角色需要改變 我們對不同意見的接受度要更寬廣 更民主 也要更開放去看待 反對我們 意見的人 為了要讓你們更了解 我的領域 我將帶你們了解 專家的世界
Now there are, of course, exceptions, wonderful, civilization-enhancing exceptions. But what my research has shown me is that experts tend on the whole to form very rigid camps, that within these camps, a dominant perspective emerges that often silences opposition, that experts move with the prevailing winds, often hero-worshipping their own gurus. Alan Greenspan's proclamations that the years of economic growth would go on and on, not challenged by his peers, until after the crisis, of course. You see, we also learn that experts are located, are governed, by the social and cultural norms of their times -- whether it be the doctors in Victorian England, say, who sent women to asylums for expressing sexual desire, or the psychiatrists in the United States who, up until 1973, were still categorizing homosexuality as a mental illness.
不過當然有例外 那種美好、提升知識的例外 但我的研究告訴我 專家都試著要 建立一群死忠擁護者 這群擁護者 讓某觀點變成了主導 常讓反方的聲音因此消失 專家就帶動一股流行 通常是英雄式的崇拜 崇拜他們自己的大師 Alan Greenspan(前美國聯準會主席)的言論 說經濟成長 會持續好幾年 他的言論在當時沒有被批評 直到發生金融危機 看吧 我們也學到 專家會被侷限 會被影響 受到社會和文化教條的規範 自己時代的規範 無論是醫生 在維多利亞時期 說送婦女到收容所 是為減低性慾 或在美國的精神科醫生 直到1973年 能把同性戀歸類為 一種精神疾病
And what all this means is that paradigms take far too long to shift, that complexity and nuance are ignored and also that money talks -- because we've all seen the evidence of pharmaceutical companies funding studies of drugs that conveniently leave out their worst side effects, or studies funded by food companies of their new products, massively exaggerating the health benefits of the products they're about to bring by market. The study showed that food companies exaggerated typically seven times more than an independent study.
這一切都表示了 這些準則 要花上很多時間去改變 原本被忽略的複雜性和細微差別 不僅如此,有錢能使鬼推磨 我們都知道 那些製藥廠商 資助藥品的研究 所以很方便地 掩飾掉藥品的副作用 或是食品廠商贊助 新開發的食品 過度誇大食品的健康療效 特別是正要上市的食品 研究指出食品公司誇大了 七倍以上 和獨立研究比較的話
And we've also got to be aware that experts, of course, also make mistakes. They make mistakes every single day -- mistakes born out of carelessness. A recent study in the Archives of Surgery reported surgeons removing healthy ovaries, operating on the wrong side of the brain, carrying out procedures on the wrong hand, elbow, eye, foot, and also mistakes born out of thinking errors. A common thinking error of radiologists, for example -- when they look at CT scans -- is that they're overly influenced by whatever it is that the referring physician has said that he suspects the patient's problem to be. So if a radiologist is looking at the scan of a patient with suspected pneumonia, say, what happens is that, if they see evidence of pneumonia on the scan, they literally stop looking at it -- thereby missing the tumor sitting three inches below on the patient's lungs.
我們也注意到 專家也是會 有出錯的時候 他們每天都會出錯 一個不小心就出錯了 最近的一項外科研究檔案 說明外科醫生 把病人健康的卵巢拿掉 進行腦部手術開錯了位置 開刀時開錯了手 開錯手肘、眼睛、腳 也製造了思維上的錯誤 普遍的思維錯誤 例如在放射科 當他們在看CT掃描時 都會過分受到 不管是 病人的前一位醫師所說的 或是他懷疑的 可能病因的影響 所以如果一位放射科醫生 看著那掃描片子 是一位疑似肺炎病人的片子 他很可能 一看到片子上 有肺炎的事實 他們直接停止看片子 因而忽略了腫瘤 在下方三英寸的地方 長在病人的肺裡
I've shared with you so far some insights into the world of experts. These are, of course, not the only insights I could share, but I hope they give you a clear sense at least of why we need to stop kowtowing to them, why we need to rebel and why we need to switch our independent decision-making capabilities on. But how can we do this? Well for the sake of time, I want to focus on just three strategies. First, we've got to be ready and willing to take experts on and dispense with this notion of them as modern-day apostles. This doesn't mean having to get a Ph.D. in every single subject, you'll be relieved to hear. But it does mean persisting in the face of their inevitable annoyance when, for example, we want them to explain things to us in language that we can actually understand. Why was it that, when I had an operation, my doctor said to me, "Beware, Ms. Hertz, of hyperpyrexia," when he could have just as easily said, "Watch out for a high fever." You see, being ready to take experts on is about also being willing to dig behind their graphs, their equations, their forecasts, their prophecies, and being armed with the questions to do that -- questions like: What are the assumptions that underpin this? What is the evidence upon which this is based? What has your investigation focused on? And what has it ignored?
目前我跟你們分享的 是專家領域裡的一些觀察 這些當然 不只是一些我觀察到的 但我希望這能讓你們至少多點了解 為何我們需要停止對專家唯命是從 為何我們需要反制 還有為何我們需要 讓我們大腦獨立決策的能力作用 但我們該怎麼做呢? 因為時間的關係 我只談三種策略 第一:我們必須準備好而且有意願 挑戰專家 但不要把專家的話當成 宗教信仰的教條 這不代表我們必須在 每個領域上拿博士學位 聽到之後應該鬆了一口氣 但它確實意味著堅持 在面對不可避免的煩惱時 例如 我們需要他們為我們解釋一些事情 用我們能了解的話語 怎麼說呢,當我需要動手術 我的醫生跟我說 "Hertz小姐,要留意 高熱症的發生" 但他其實能簡單的跟我說 要留意是否發高燒? 了解嗎,要挑戰專家 就是要有意願 去了解他們圖表的意義 他們的方程式、預測 他們的預言 要準備好問題問他們 像是問 假設基準為何? 證據是根據什麼得到的? 你們的調查重點是什麼? 為什麼這個因素被忽略?
It recently came out that experts trialing drugs before they come to market typically trial drugs first, primarily on male animals and then, primarily on men. It seems that they've somehow overlooked the fact that over half the world's population are women. And women have drawn the short medical straw because it now turns out that many of these drugs don't work nearly as well on women as they do on men -- and the drugs that do work well work so well that they're actively harmful for women to take. Being a rebel is about recognizing that experts' assumptions and their methodologies can easily be flawed.
最近發現 專家們測試藥品 在上市之前 通常藥品測試 主要是對雄性動物 接著才對男性做測試 看來,他們已經在某種程度上忽略了一個事實 這個世界的人口有一半是女性 女性病患在醫療成功的機率比較小 因為大部分的藥物 在女性病患身上效果較差 和男性患者比起來的話 藥品療效在男性身上較好 而對女性患者是有害的 要當一個反抗的人要知道 專家用的假設 和他們的理論 是很容易有錯誤的
Second, we need to create the space for what I call "managed dissent." If we are to shift paradigms, if we are to make breakthroughs, if we are to destroy myths, we need to create an environment in which expert ideas are battling it out, in which we're bringing in new, diverse, discordant, heretical views into the discussion, fearlessly, in the knowledge that progress comes about, not only from the creation of ideas, but also from their destruction -- and also from the knowledge that, by surrounding ourselves by divergent, discordant, heretical views. All the research now shows us that this actually makes us smarter. Encouraging dissent is a rebellious notion because it goes against our very instincts, which are to surround ourselves with opinions and advice that we already believe or want to be true. And that's why I talk about the need to actively manage dissent.
第二: 我們需要創造空間 去管理不同的意見 如果我們要改變規範 如果我們要有所突破 如果我們要打破迷思 我們需要創造出一個空間 讓專家的意見是被辯論出來的 我們要把 新的、多樣的、不同的,不同宗教的意見 帶進討論裡 而且是無所畏懼的 在談到關於知識的進展 不只是建立想法 也包括拋去想法 各種知識裡 在我們周遭 不同、不一致的 不同宗教派別的觀點 所有的研究告訴我們 這些實際上都讓我們變得聰明 鼓勵反對的意見是一種反抗的概念 因為這是在抗拒我們的本能 我們喜歡處在 一個意見和建議 被公認正確 或是事實的環境裡 這也是我為何談到我們需要 主動地去了解這些不同的聲音
Google CEO Eric Schmidt is a practical practitioner of this philosophy. In meetings, he looks out for the person in the room -- arms crossed, looking a bit bemused -- and draws them into the discussion, trying to see if they indeed are the person with a different opinion, so that they have dissent within the room. Managing dissent is about recognizing the value of disagreement, discord and difference. But we need to go even further. We need to fundamentally redefine who it is that experts are. The conventional notion is that experts are people with advanced degrees, fancy titles, diplomas, best-selling books -- high-status individuals. But just imagine if we were to junk this notion of expertise as some sort of elite cadre and instead embrace the notion of democratized expertise -- whereby expertise was not just the preserve of surgeons and CEO's, but also shop-girls -- yeah.
Google執行長Eric Schmidt 是一位這種理念 的實踐者 開會時,他會找會議室中那一個 雙手交疊,看起來有點困惑 並請他們加入討論 試著要了解他們 是否有不同的意見 他們是否是會議裡有異議的人 了解異議 是要去區分出 不同意,不一致 和不同的價值 但我們需要更進一步 我們需要從根本上重新定義 誰才是專家 傳統的觀念 專家是那些 有高學歷 高職位,有文憑 暢銷書作者 地位高的人 但想像一下 如果我們丟掉 這種專業知識的概念 還有以精英為基準的想法 而去接納 大眾化的專業知識 那們專業知識就不只是來自於 外科醫生或是執行長之類的人士 也有可能來自於一般的店員
Best Buy, the consumer electronics company, gets all its employees -- the cleaners, the shop assistants, the people in the back office, not just its forecasting team -- to place bets, yes bets, on things like whether or not a product is going to sell well before Christmas, on whether customers' new ideas are going to be or should be taken on by the company, on whether a project will come in on time. By leveraging and by embracing the expertise within the company, Best Buy was able to discover, for example, that the store that it was going to open in China -- its big, grand store -- was not going to open on time. Because when it asked its staff, all its staff, to place their bets on whether they thought the store would open on time or not, a group from the finance department placed all their chips on that not happening. It turned out that they were aware, as no one else within the company was, of a technological blip that neither the forecasting experts, nor the experts on the ground in China, were even aware of.
像是Best Buy的店員 消費性電子產品公司的 所有員工 從清潔工、店員 到高階主管 包括他們預測團隊 去打賭,你們沒聽錯 去打賭一樣東西 像是一項可能在聖誕節前暢銷的產品 或是決定顧客的新想法 是否要被公司採納 或是一項計畫 是否要如期執行 透過利用 還有接納 在公司裡的專業人才 Best Buy可以去發掘,例如 即將要在中國開立的營業據點 一間大型的門市 不會如期開張 因為如果去問他們的員工 所有的員工,要他們下賭注 看看是否門市會如期開幕 財務部的人 全部都賭 不會如期開幕 原來這些人意識到 公司其他人沒有發現的東西 發現了個技術上的小問題 不管是預測專家 或是在中國的專家 都沒注意到的情況
The strategies that I have discussed this evening -- embracing dissent, taking experts on, democratizing expertise, rebellious strategies -- are strategies that I think would serve us all well to embrace as we try to deal with the challenges of these very confusing, complex, difficult times. For if we keep our independent decision-making part of our brains switched on, if we challenge experts, if we're skeptical, if we devolve authority, if we are rebellious, but also if we become much more comfortable with nuance, uncertainty and doubt, and if we allow our experts to express themselves using those terms too, we will set ourselves up much better for the challenges of the 21st century. For now, more than ever, is not the time to be blindly following, blindly accepting, blindly trusting. Now is the time to face the world with eyes wide open -- yes, using experts to help us figure things out, for sure -- I don't want to completely do myself out of a job here -- but being aware of their limitations and, of course, also our own.
然而 我今晚要談的策略 -- 接納不同的意見 挑戰專家 把專業知識大眾化 反抗的策略 都是我認為 能幫助我們有效了解 當我們要嘗試面對挑戰的時候 面對那些困惑、複雜 艱難的挑戰時 如果我們能 讓我們大腦獨立決策的區塊 有效運作 如果我們挑戰專家,我們去質疑 如果我們下放權力 如果我們反抗 同時 我們能自在的了解 那些細微差別 和不確定的疑惑 還有我們讓專家 在發表言論時 也能做到這樣 那我們能幫助自己 更能去面對 21世紀的挑戰 比起過去,現在 更不應該 盲目地追隨 盲目地接受 盲目地相信 現在的世界 我們要睜大眼睛 當然,要利用專家 來幫助我們弄清楚事情 我可不希望自己失業 但我們要明白 專家的限度 當然還有我們自己的限度
Thank you.
謝謝各位
(Applause)
(掌聲)