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.
你相信太阳要比地球大很多 地球是一个接近于球体的星球 地球每24小时自转一周 每365天绕着太阳转一周 你相信你是在某个特定的时间出生的 你有父亲和母亲 并且你还相信 你的父母都比你更早出生 你相信其他的人类 也像你一样有思想和感觉 你不是被类似于人类的机器人所环绕 你相信所有这些以及更多的事情 虽然你没有亲眼所见 因为,观察事物的本身并不能告诉你很多 关于家族大小 和太阳与地球的活动 或者你的家族历史 或是别人的大脑里在想什么 相反,大部分的这些知识 都是别人告诉你的 没有笔头或者口头证据 人类不能在人和人之间 传递知识 更不必说一代和一代之间了 我们会知道得更少 身边的世界 所以了解一个专题 要请教某个领域的专家 或者诉讼权威 帮助我们获得知识 但是,它不总是适用 甚至最受尊敬的权威 也能出现错失 通常这发生 是因为一个 高度受尊敬的权威不诚实 声称懂得某件事物 但他(她)其实并不真的了解 有时它发生只是因为 他们犯了一个错误 当他们并不懂时,他们以为自己懂 例如,一群受尊敬的经济学家 没有预期到 2008 年财务危机 他们被验明是错的 或者他们的错误 是因为看漏重要迹象 或者他们的错误是因为曲解了 某些已注意到的迹象 或者他们的错误 简单地因为他们粗心地 从迹象总体归结原因 但不论原因如何 他们被验明是错误的 和其他很多相信权威的人一样 最终失去了大量的金钱 失去了别人大量的金钱 因为误信 所以诉诸权威 有时能够为我们提供有价值的知识 它有时也能导致 极大的过错 对于我们所有人很重要的是 能够区分那些安全合理 可信的权威的声明 和那些我们不能信任的声明 但怎么做到呢? 要那样做 没有任何事物比 一个权威在某个特殊领域的 历史数据更有用 如果某人在某个特定条件 很长时间表现良好 那么很可能他(她)会继续 在同样条件下表现良好 至少在最近的期间 然后这个观点在 权威声明和其他方面都适用 假如某人能够持续选中 政治和棒球的胜者 我们会更可能相信他(她) 会继续选中政治或棒球赢家 虽然可能其他事情并不这样 因为他或她的历史数据可能不出众 假如其他预言家有更差的历史数据 在同样两个方面 那么我们不应该那么相信他们 所以不论你考虑 是否相信某些权威声明 你第一个要问自己的问题是 “他们在那个方面的历史数据如何?” 然后意识到你可以 对自己使用同样方法 你的直觉告诉你 你刚碰到了真命天子 但是你的直觉在哪方面的历史数据 与这个主题相似? 你的直觉是否曾证明 值得你信任? 就像我们鉴定其他人的声明 通过他们的历史数据 所以,我们也能鉴定自己的直觉 通过它们的历史数据 这样使我们更近一步 客观看待自我 和我们身边世界的联系