Part of the problem in life is taking advice from the wrong people.

I recently read, in the book Influence, that people have difficulty in distinguishing between experts and authorities, and often follow authorities who are not experts.

So it’s useful to know when that might be happening, and I have some suggestions.

The first is to know that it is very difficult to do a simple thing: to think for oneself. It takes a combination of confidence, knowledge, and decisiveness to make our own decisions, and the ego will do what it can to prevent us from “failing”, so at the sacrifice of our independence we will instead “just follow orders”, absolving us of any responsibility if the decision turns out to be bad.

Thus the first step is to develop the confidence and knowledge, which are cyclical - it takes knowledge to get knowledge, and it takes confidence to gain confidence - so the process is challenging. Like most things, it is easier with practice.

And part of gaining knowledge, in this context, is to choose one’s sources. That’s the core of the problem: we’ll choose authorities instead of experts. And authorities will mislead us, either deliberately or unconsciously, sometimes badly, precisely because they are not experts, and don’t know the counterintuitive consequenes of their decisions.

Here’s some simple criteria: does the authority/expert have an interest in us deciding one way or another? That is, are they biased, or not? Thus, people in sales have a bias toward us purchasing what they’re selling, so their advise in this context is suspect.

Note that this is not a binary choice - an expert can be an authority - and the challenge here is to know when an authority is not an expert, despite their appearances.

A second set of criteria is to recognize that expertise is usually focused, and the greater level of expertise, the narrower the focus. For example, an expert in a medical field will be very focused, such as an eye doctor, which would be preferable for cataract surgery over a general practioner.

So that poses the question: is this person a generalist, or a specialist? Does the person seem to be, or worse, claim to be, an expert in other areas? That is suspicious, given that we all have a finite amount of time, and the time spent practicing violin, mountain bike racing, and alligator wrestling will be time not spent on the supposed area of expertise.

Not to get too political, but this shows the ultimate authorities without expertise: a politican will be treated as an expert in matters of personal and corporate finance, economics, racial relationships, world history, biology, career management, education, environmental science, and military strategy and tactics.

In the real world, if one wanted to learn the background and details of primary decisions in the Peloponnesian War, one wouldn’t go to “a history professor”, but instead to someone who has written four books on Greek history, including two on the war itself. That’s an expert, a focused one.

Here’s an unusual question: to what extent does the authority/expert allow questions on what they claim expertise in? For example, when a politican says that everyone has “a right to X”, do they allow questions, and answer them, as to exactly what X means, or is X a vague term?

Or is the advice sent in only one direction, and is not a loop between the expert/authority and the person being advised? How much information from the advisee does the expert/authority ask for, and how much do they adjust their advice? That is an obvious reason to immediately distrust, or at least be skeptical of, “experts” who primarily give speeches, and only under very controlled conditions do they permit questions. Yes, as in politicians and media figures.

So don’t be fooled – an authority is not necessarily an expert, nor is an expert an authority. Seek advice from experts, and ignore authorities.

To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself. - Albert Einstein

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