Two Plus Two Magazine, Vol. 11, No.9
With all the discussion going on these days about all sorts of different issues, how can we know who to trust, especially if we don't know much about the issue ourselves? When you're trying to decide who is most likely to be right when people are taking different positions, there are several factors you should try to take into account.
Who Knows the Subject Better?
This would be the person who has the most experience or perhaps the person who has studied the most about it. This, of course, is a criterion that almost everyone uses. However, they commonly neglect many of the following criteria.
Who is Smarter?
By this I mean who is better at critical thinking? Who understands deductive logic? Because if someone is not good at logic, they are more likely to commit fallacies like “affirming the logical” or “denying the antecedent.” Once they do this, they will usually come to an incorrect conclusion. This may be hard for some people to admit, but there is little doubt that the person with less experience or detailed knowledge of the subject may still be more likely to be right simply because they are smarter. Poker players see this demonstrated every day when the college kids beat the grizzled veterans.
Who is Biased?
Do any of the debaters personally gain if the position they are advocating is generally accepted? If so, they are less likely to be correct than the one who disagrees but has nothing to gain. (Assuming, of course, that all other factors are equal.) Obviously, you would be much more inclined to believe someone if the position they are advocating would result in something harmful to them if it were accepted. A common example would be when two surgeons disagree about whether you should have an operation. I would tend to bet on the one who says no.
How Right Are They?
If they are equally wealthy and equally inclined to bet, I would tend to believe the person who is willing to bet more. This may be true even if they are not as intelligent and are a bit biased. When the number two football team is playing against the number five football team on a neutral field, the number five team is sometimes favored by the bettors, even though the experts rate them lower. When this happens, you can be sure that the number five team is more likely to win. Exactly why this syndrome occurs is unclear. It probably involves the fact that the person who wants to bet more knows something about this particular situation, even if he or she is more stupid or less experienced.
Do They Mention the Counter Arguments?
When defending their positions, many people simply give reasons why they are right. But if you are a person who is confident in your convictions, you don’t mind specifically refuting your opponent’s arguments point by point. If at least one of the two debaters is doing this, you should lean toward his or her side.
Is Being Right Important to Him?
Sometimes you meet someone who prides himself on never being wrong. Obviously, no one like that would be both well-informed on the subject and have a high IQ. But, more importantly, that person won't weigh an issue if they're not sure of their answer. (The exception, of course, would be if they're attributing probability to their opinion, since they can blame an upset on the outcome when they turn out to be wrong.) When you meet someone like that, you should almost always assume that they're the one who's right, even if you'd think otherwise under normal circumstances. It's like a poker player going all-in on the river when the only hand that can beat you is a back door flush. That's an unlikely event. But it's even more unlikely that they'd make that bet without that flush.
Written by: David Sklansky
Translated and adapted from: Who Should You Believe?
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