You believe that the Sun is much larger than the Earth, that the Earth is a roughly spherical planet that rotates on its axis every 24 hours and it revolves around the Sun once every 365 days. You believe that you were born on a particular date, that you were born to two human parents and that each of your human parents was born on an earlier date. You believe that other human beings have thoughts and feelings like you do and that you are not surrounded by humanoid robots. You believe all of these things and many more, not on the basis of direct observation, which can't, by itself, tell you very much about the relative size and motion of the Sun and the Earth, or about your own family history, or about what goes on in the minds of other humans. Instead, these beliefs are mostly based on what you've been told. Without spoken and written testimonies, human beings could not pass on knowledge from one person to another, let alone from one generation to another. We would know much, much less about the world around us. So learning about a topic by asking an expert on that topic, or appealing to authority, helps us gain knowledge, but, it doesn't always. Even the most highly respected authorities can turn out to be wrong. Occasionally this happens because a highly respected authority is dishonest and claims to know something that she or he really doesn't know. Sometimes it happens just because they make a mistake. They think they know when they don't know. For example, a number of respected economists did not expect the financial collapse of 2008. They turned out to be wrong. Maybe they were wrong because they were overlooking some important evidence. Maybe they were wrong because they were misinterpreting some of the evidence they had noticed. Or maybe they were wrong simply because they were reasoning carelessly from the total body of their evidence. But whatever the reason, they turned out to be wrong and many people who trusted their authority ended up losing lots of money, losing lots of other people's money, on account of that misplaced trust. So while appealing to authority can sometimes provide us with valuable knowledge, it also can sometimes be the cause of monumental errors. It's important to all of us to be able to distinguish those occasions on which we can safely and reasonably trust authority from those occasions on which we can't. But how do we do that? In order to do that, nothing is more useful than an authority's track record on a particular topic. If someone turns out to perform well in a given situation much of the time, then it's likely that he or she will continue to perform well in that same situation, at least in the near term. And this generalization holds true of the testimony of authorities as much as of anything else. If someone can consistently pick winners in both politics and baseball, then we should probably trust him or her to keep on picking winners in both politics or baseball, though maybe not in other things where his or her track record may be less stellar. If other forecasters have a poorer track record on those same two topics, then we shouldn't trust them as much. So whenever you're considering whether to trust the testimony of some authority, the first question to ask yourself is, "What's their track record on this topic?" And notice that you can apply the very same lesson to yourself. Your instincts tell you that you've just met Mr. Right, but what sort of track record do your instincts have on topics like this one? Have your instincts proven themselves to be worthy of your trust? Just as we judge other people's testimony by their track record, so, too, we can judge our own instincts by their track record. And this brings us one step closer to an objective view of ourselves and our relation to the world around us.
Kau percaya bahwa matahari lebih besar dari bumi. Bumi itu planet yang berbentuk bundar, yang berputar di porosnya tiap 24 jam dan mengelilingi matahari sekali setiap 365 hari. Kau percaya dirimu lahir pada tanggal tertentu, kau lahir dari dua orang tua manusia, dan masing-masing orang tua manusiamu lahir lebih awal. Kau percaya manusia lain punya pikiran dan perasaan sepertimu dan kau tidak dikelilingi robot manusia. Kau percaya semua hal ini dan banyak hal lainnya, bukan didasarkan pengamatan langsung, yang ini sendiri tak bisa banyak menjelaskan ukuran dan pergerakan relatif dari matahari dan bumi, riwayat keluargamu, atau isi pikiran manusia lain. Sebaliknya, kepercayaan ini sering didasarkan dari apa yang dijelaskan kepadamu. Tanpa pernyataan lisan dan tertulis, manusia tidak bisa menurunkan ilmu dari satu orang ke yang lain, apalagi dari satu generasi ke yang lain. Kita cuma akan tahu sedikit tentang dunia sekitar kita. Mempelajari topik dengan menanyakan ahlinya atau klaim orang berwenang, membantu kita menambah ilmu. Namun, tak selalu begitu. Bahkan, orang paling berwenang bisa saja salah. Kadang ini terjadi karena orang yang paling berwenang tidak jujur dan mengaku tahu sesuatu yang sebenarnya tak diketahuinya. Kadang ini terjadi karena mereka keliru. Mereka pikir tahu saat sebenarnya tak tahu. Misalnya, beberapa ahli ekonomi terpandang tidak menduga krisis finansial pada 2008. Mereka ternyata salah. Mungkin mereka salah karena tak menyadari beberapa bukti penting. Mungkin mereka salah karena salah mengartikan beberapa bukti yang mereka sadari. Atau mungkin mereka salah hanya karena sembarang menyimpulkan dari keseluruhan bukti mereka. Namun, apa pun alasannya, mereka tetap salah. Dan banyak yang memercayai wewenang mereka berakhir kehilangan banyak uang, kehilangan banyak uang orang lain, akibat kepercayaan yang salah tempat. Klaim orang berwenang kadang bisa memberi kita ilmu berharga, tapi kadang juga bisa menyebabkan kesalahan besar. Penting bagi kita semua untuk bisa membedakan saat kita bisa dengan aman dan beralasan memercayai orang berwenang dengan saat kita tak bisa melakukannya. Tapi bagaimana caranya? Untuk melakukannya, tak ada yang lebih penting dari rekam jejak orang berwenang dalam topik tertentu. Jika dia ternyata punya kinerja baik, dalam hal ini sering melakukannya, kemungkinan dia akan terus punya kinerja baik dalam mengerjakannya. Setidaknya dalam jangka pendek. Penyamarataan ini berlaku pada pernyataan orang berwenang, begitu juga hal lainnya. Jika seseorang bisa terus menebak pemenang dalam politik dan bisbol, kita mungkin bisa memercayainya untuk menebak pemenang politik atau bisbol, meski mungkin tidak untuk hal lain di mana rekam jejaknya kurang baik. Jika ahli prediksi lain punya rekam jejak buruk di dua topik tersebut, kita tidak harus memercayainya juga. Kapan pun kau mempertimbangkan untuk percaya pernyataan orang berwenang, hal pertama yang kau tanyakan adalah, “Bagaimana rekam jejak mereka dalam topik ini?” Perhatikan pula jika kau bisa menerapkan pelajaran yang sama pada dirimu. Intuisimu mengatakan kau telah menemukan pasangan tepat, tapi apa rekam jejak intuisimu dalam topik ini? Pernahkan nalurimu terbukti bagus untuk bisa kau percayai? Sama halnya menilai pernyataan orang lain dari rekam jejak mereka, kita pun dapat menilai intuisi kita sesuai rekam jejaknya. Hal ini mendekatkan kita pada pandangan objektif akan diri kita dan hubungan kita pada dunia di sekitar kita.