Wrong: Why Experts Keep Failing Us and How to Know When Not to Trust Them

Interesting at times but often tedious

Reads like a compendium of studies and expert pronouncements that we shouldn't always believe. After a while we get the point over and over - something many of us already knew. Still, it's worth reading especially for people who tend to think the experts are always right.

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David Freedman Knocks it Out of the Park

When I was alerted to the pre-order for David Freedman's new book, I had no choice but to snatch it right up. Author of so many fascinating articles that I've enjoyed in many of my regular publications (INC, Scientific American, the New York Times, Time, etc.), as well as one of my favorite non-fiction titles of the last 5 years (A Perfect Mess- it's the bible backing my crusade against my controlling, OCD, neat-freak wife and entire extended family), I was both pleased and excited to see that David had completed a project that has never been more timely or prescient.

Our culture and economy rest within a predominating framework of 'the cult of expertise.' Claimed expertise is what differentiates those in charge, with immense direct and indirect power over so many people's lives, from the lower-level workers with a tiny fraction of their salaries and little control over powerful and fragile forces that could ruin their lives in a second's notice. Politicians who refuse to make informed, principled decisions, the financial industry's collapse, the BP oil spill, global climate change, and massive amounts of local, state, and federal government debt are only several examples of so-called expertise failing us when our country is in dire need of informed, ethical decision-making.

Mr. Freedman delves deeply into this very pressing matter and illuminates the complex and fascinating issues in such a skilled, persistent, and clear way. This is the type of investigative project that the national discourse needed so badly, and Mr. Freedman delivers. Thank you, and thank you for such a wonderful and enlightening read.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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