Nous sommes entourés d'experts qui nous donnent avec assurance avis et conseils sur tout. Mais si l'on y regarde de plus près, ils sont loin d'être infaillibles.

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Ten years ago two financial experts, James Glassman and Kevin Hassett,  wrote “Dow 36,000, The New Strategy For Profiting From the Coming Rise in the Stock Market”.
Today the Dow Jones is struggling to keep its head above 7,500 and yet, believe it or not, these experts are still very highly sought after for their advice.
Why is it that we put such faith in experts?
For the answer we must go to an article by Eric Schurenberg in CNNMoney magazine.
Eric Schurenberg is interviewing Philip Tetlock, professor of organizational behavior at the Haas Business School, University of California-Berkley. For the last 25 years Professor Tetlock has been researching the abilities and accuracy of experts and especially those involved in the political arena.
Professor Tetlock’s answer to our simple question is, “We need to believe we live in a predictable, controllable world, so we turn to authoritative-sounding people who promise to satisfy that need. That's why part of the responsibility for experts' poor records falls on us. We seek out experts who promise impossible levels of accuracy, then we do a poor job keeping score.
Fortunately Professor Tetlock and his team have been keeping score and, “We found that our experts' predictions barely beat random guesses and proved no better than predictions of reasonably well-read non-experts. Ironically, the more famous the expert, the less accurate his or her predictions tended to be.”
Still not convinced of the advice "Beware of experts"?
Here are three examples of experts who got it horribly wrong.
One of mankind’s greatest inventions is the electric light but Oxford University Professor Erasmus Wilson commenting on the Paris Exhibition of 1878 said, “When the Paris Exhibition closes, electric light will close with it and no more will be heard of it.”
In more recent times, Ken Olsen, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp and expert on mainframe computers, said in 1977, “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” Fortunately for us, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs took no notice of Olsen’s “expert” advice.
Then there is the classic case of someone who actually labeled himself “expert”.
Admiral William D. Leahy, Chief of Staff to the Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy during World War II when advising President Truman of his expert opinion on the Manhattan Project-The creation of the atomic bomb.
“This is the biggest fool thing we have ever done. The bomb will never go off, and I speak as an expert in explosives.”
Five years later in his memoirs Leahy had the good grace to admit he was wrong.
But as yet there appears to be no official record of Mrs Glassman and Hassett admitting they got it wrong and apologizing to those people who acted on their advice of the Dow Jones going to 36,000.

By Stan