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.
Unaamini kwamba jua ni kubwa kuliko dunia, kwamba dunia duara lisilo dufu inajizungusha katika mhimili kila masaa 24 na hulizunguka jua mara moja kwa siku 365 Unaamini kwamba ulizaliwa katika tarehe fulani, ulizaliwa na wazazi wawili ambao ni binadamu na kila mmoja ya wazazi wako alizaliwa tarehe kabla ya yako. Unaamini kwamba bindamu wengine wana mawazo na hisia kama wewe na hujazungukwa na roboti watu. Unaamini vitu hivi na vingine vingi, sio katika kuona mwenyewe kwa uchunguzi wako ambapo hauwezi kukwambia mengi kuhusu ukubwa na mwendo wa jua na dunia, au kuhusu historia ya familia yako, au kinachoendelea katika vichwa vya binadamu wengine. Badala,hizi imani zinategemea zaidi na ambacho umeambiwa. Bila shuhuda za kuongelewa wala kuandikwa, binadamu asingehamisha maarifa kutoka mtu mmoja kwenda kwa mwingine, achia mbali kutoka kizazi kimoja kwenda kingine. Tungejua machache,machache sana kuhusu dunia inayotuzunguka. Kwa hiyo kuhusu mada kwa kumuuliza mtaalamu katika hiyo mada, au kuwaona mamlaka, kutusaidia kupata maarifa, lakini,haisaidii mara zote. Hata mamlaka za juu zinazoheshimiwa zinaweza kutokuwa sahihi. Mara kadhaa hutokea kwa sababu mamlaka ya juu inayoheshimika ni danganyifu na hudai inajua kitu ambacho mtu hakijui kabisa. Muda mwingine hutokea kwa sababu wanafanya makosa. Wanadhani wanajua wakati hawajui. Kwa mfano,idadi ya wanauchumi wanaoheshimika hawakutegemei mporomoko wa kifedha wa mwaka 2008 Walikuja kuwa sio sahihi. Labda walikuwa sio sahihi kwa sababu walikuwa wanaangalia sana ushahidi muhimu. Labda hawakuwa sahihi kwa sababu walikuwa wanatafsiri visivyo baadhi ya ukweli waliogundua. au hawakuwa sahihi kwa sababu wanafikiri pasipo uangalifu wa makini kutoka katika ushahidi mzima. Lakini kwa sababu yoyote walitokea kukosea na watu wengi walioamini mamlaka yao waliishia kupoteza hela nyingi, kupoteza hela nyingi za watu wengine, katika akaunti iliyopoteza uaminifu. Kwa hiyo kuona mamlaka muda mwingine inatupa maarifa muhimu, pia inaweza sababisha matatizo makubwa Ni muhimu sisi sote kuweza kutofautisha zile shughuli tunaweza tukaiamini mamlaka na zile ambazo hatuwezi kuiamini mamlaka Lakini tunafanya vipi? Kwa ajili ya kufanya hivyo, hakuna cha msingi zaidi mamalaka kufatilia rekodi ya mada husika. Kama inatokea mtu anafanya vizuri katika kitu fulani mara nyingi, ni wazi kwamba mtu huyo ataendelea kufanya vizuri katika hicho kitu, angalau kwa kiasi. Na hili jumuisho lina ukweli kwa ushahidi wa mamlaka zaidi ya kitu kingine chochote. Kama mtu anaweza chagua mshindi ki uhakika katika siasa na baseball, kwa hiyo tunaweza kumuamini yeye kuchagua washindi katika siasa au baseball, ingawa inawezekana isiwe katika vitu vingine ambapo rekodi yake yote inaweza isiwe nzuri sana. Kama watabiri wa hali ya hewa wana kumbukumbu isiyo nzuri katika mada hizo mbili sawa, basi hatutakiwi kuwaamini sana. kwa muda wowote unapoangalia kuamini ushuhuda wa mamlaka fulani, swali la kwanza kujiauliza ni, Ipi ni rekodi yao katika hii mada? Na tambua unaweza tumia somo hilohilo kwa nafsi yako. Uzoefu wako unakuambia umekutana na bwana sawa, lakini ni rekodi ipi uzoefu wako unayo katika mada kama hii? Je uzoefu wako umejidhihirisha wenyewe kuwa wa kuaminika? Kama tunavyohukumu shuhuda za wengine kwa rekodi zao, pia tunaweza kuhukumu maarifa yetu kwa rekodi zao. Na hii inatupeleka hatua moja karibu katika uono wa majukumu yetu na uhusiano wetu na dunia inayotuzunguka.