It's Monday morning. In Washington, the president of the United States is sitting in the Oval Office,
星期一的早晨。在华盛顿，美国总统坐在椭圆形办公室里，
assessing whether or not to strike Al Qaeda in Yemen.
思忖着是否要打击也门的基地组织。
At Number 10 Downing Street, David Cameron is trying to work out whether to cut more public sector jobs in order to stave off a double-dip recession.
在唐宁街10号，戴维·卡梅隆正在考虑是否削减更多公共部门职位以对抗二次经济衰退。
In Madrid, Maria Gonzalez is standing at the door, listening to her baby crying and crying,
在马德里，玛丽亚·冈萨雷斯站在门边，听着她的孩子不停哭泣，
trying to work out whether she should let it cry until it falls asleep or pick it up and hold it.
她想弄明白是该让孩子继续哭，哭到自己睡着，还是把孩子抱起来，哄一哄。
And I am sitting by my father's bedside in hospital,
在医院，我坐在父亲的病床旁，
trying to work out whether I should let him drink the one-and-a-half-liter bottle of water that his doctors just came in and said,
想知道是否让他喝下那瓶1.5公升的水，刚才他的医生来到病房说：
"You must make him drink today," -- my father's been nil by mouth for a week -- or whether, by giving him this bottle, I might actually kill him.
“你今天必须让他喝下去，”--我父亲饮食难咽已经一个星期了，让他喝下这么一大瓶水，简直是要了他的命。
We face momentous decisions with important consequences throughout our lives, and we have strategies for dealing with these decisions.
在我们的一生中，我们会面临着种种重要选择，这些选择的结果会产生重要影响。
We talk things over with our friends, we scour the Internet, we search through books.
我们有各种途径来应对这些选择：跟朋友倾谈，上网搜索或者查阅书籍。
But still, even in this age of Google and TripAdvisor and Amazon Recommends,
但是即便当今我们有谷歌、到到网和亚马逊推荐，
it's still experts that we rely upon most -- especially when the stakes are high and the decision really matters.
我们仍然最信赖专家--尤其是在风险很高、选择非常重要时，更是如此。
Because in a world of data deluge and extreme complexity, we believe that experts are more able to process information than we can
因为在一个拥有海量数据和极其纷繁复杂的世界中，我们相信专家比我们更善于处理信息
that they are able to come to better conclusions than we could come to on our own.
他们给出的结论，往往比我们自己的结论要好。
And in an age that is sometimes nowadays frightening or confusing,
在一个让我们时常感到恐惧、有时困惑的时代，
we feel reassured by the almost parental-like authority of experts who tell us so clearly what it is we can and cannot do.
我们只有把专家当作父母一样的权威来信赖，听从他们所说的话，遵循他们的建议，做选择时才感到安心。
But I believe that this is a big problem, a problem with potentially dangerous consequences for us as a society, as a culture and as individuals.
但我认为这是一个大问题，甚至可能严重的影响到我们整个社会、整个文化及我们个人。
It's not that experts have not massively contributed to the world -- of course they have.
我并不是在否定专家对世界作出的巨大贡献--他们当然有贡献。
The problem lies with us: we've become addicted to experts.
问题出在我们身上：我们已变得过于依赖专家。
We've become addicted to their certainty, their assuredness, their definitiveness, and in the process,
我们过于相信专家是千真万确、十拿九稳、永不出错，在这一过程中，
we have ceded our responsibility, substituting our intellect and our intelligence for their supposed words of wisdom.
我们放弃了自己的责任，丢弃了自己的逻辑思维和聪明才智，只相信专家的真知灼见。
We've surrendered our power, trading off our discomfort with uncertainty for the illusion of certainty that they provide.
我们放弃了自己的力量，因为自己无法确定感到苦恼，所以幻想通过专家的确定性来排解我们的苦恼。
This is no exaggeration. In a recent experiment, a group of adults had their brains scanned in an MRI machine as they were listening to experts speak.
我没有夸张。最近有一个实验，对一组成年人的大脑进行磁共振扫描，同时让他们听专家讲话。
The results were quite extraordinary. As they listened to the experts' voices, the independent decision-making parts of their brains switched off.
扫描结果让人惊讶。他们听专家讲话的同时，大脑负责独立决策的区域就停止活动。
It literally flat-lined. And they listened to whatever the experts said and took their advice, however right or wrong.
屏幕上出现一条直线。无论专家所说的话是什么，他们都全盘接受专家的建议，不分对错。
But experts do get things wrong. Did you know that studies show that doctors misdiagnose four times out of 10?
但是专家也会犯错。你们知道有研究表明医生的诊断结果中有40%的误诊率吗？
Did you know that if you file your tax returns yourself,
你们知道有数据表明如果你自己填纳税申报单，
you're statistically more likely to be filing them correctly than if you get a tax adviser to do it for you?
自己往往计算得正确，而找一个纳税顾问来帮你报税，正确率要差很多吗？
And then there's, of course, the example that we're all too aware of:
当然，我还能举出大家更熟悉的例子：
financial experts getting it so wrong that we're living through the worst recession since the 1930s.
正因为金融专家大错特错，所以我们陷入了自30年代以来最糟糕的经济衰退。
For the sake of our health, our wealth and our collective security,
为了我们的健康、繁荣以及共同安全，
it's imperative that we keep the independent decision-making parts of our brains switched on.
我们必须要保持大脑的独立决策能力时时开启。
And I'm saying this as an economist who, over the past few years, has focused my research on what it is we think and who it is we trust and why,
我是一个经济学者，在过去的几年中集中研究我们人类的想法，我们相信谁以及为什么相信他们，
but also -- and I'm aware of the irony here -- as an expert myself, as a professor,
但同时--我也意识到比较讽刺的一点--我本身就是专家，也是一名教授，
as somebody who advises prime ministers, heads of big companies, international organizations,
我为许多首相、大公司的领导和国际组织提供建议；
but an expert who believes that the role of experts needs to change,
但我自己却认为专家的角色需要转变，
that we need to become more open-minded, more democratic and be more open to people rebelling against our points of view.
专家的思维应该更开放，更听从公众的意见，更加能容纳那些质疑我们观点的人。
So in order to help you understand where I'm coming from, let me bring you into my world, the world of experts.
为了帮助大家了解我的背景，我先带大家了解下我的世界，专家的世界。
Now there are, of course, exceptions, wonderful, civilization-enhancing exceptions.
当然，现实中不乏例子表明，专家推动了人类文明的进步。
But what my research has shown me is that experts tend on the whole to form very rigid camps,
但我的研究表明，专家整体上倾向于形成非常顽固的阵营，
that within these camps, a dominant perspective emerges that often silences opposition,
在每个阵营之内有一个占主导地位的观点，常常压制其他的反对观点，
that experts move with the prevailing winds, often hero-worshipping their own gurus.
专家也都随波逐流，通常都追捧自己那一派的泰斗。
Alan Greenspan's proclamations that the years of economic growth would go on and on, not challenged by his peers, until after the crisis, of course.
阿兰·格林斯潘曾经宣称经济增长会连年持续，不会停滞，业内没人挑战他的权威，但后来经济危机却席卷而来。
You see, we also learn that experts are located, are governed, by the social and cultural norms of their times
你瞧，我们要明白专家也有地域性，也受到既定的社会文化准则的制约，
whether it be the doctors in Victorian England, say, who sent women to asylums for expressing sexual desire,
举几个例子：英国维多利亚时代的医生，把表达自己性欲的女性送到精神病院；
or the psychiatrists in the United States who, up until 1973, were still categorizing homosexuality as a mental illness.
美国的精神科医生一直到1973年还把同性恋归结为精神疾病。
And what all this means is that paradigms take far too long to shift,
所有这些表明，人们的思维范式根深蒂固、迟于改变，
that complexity and nuance are ignored and also that money talks
而且忽略了复杂性和差异性，还往往向金钱看齐，
because we've all seen the evidence of pharmaceutical companies funding studies of drugs that conveniently leave out their worst side effects,
我们都看到过制药公司出资研究药品，却图方便对药品最大的副作用置之不理，
or studies funded by food companies of their new products, massively exaggerating the health benefits of the products they're about to bring by market.
还有一些食品公司出资研究自己的新产品，但却对他们准备推向市场的新产品的健康疗效极其夸大。
The study showed that food companies exaggerated typically seven times more than an independent study.
研究表明，食品公司的研究结果往往比独立研究要夸大七倍。
And we've also got to be aware that experts, of course, also make mistakes.
我们也要认识到，专家当然也会犯错。
They make mistakes every single day -- mistakes born out of carelessness.
他们每一天都会犯一些错误--往往是由于粗心引起的。
A recent study in the Archives of Surgery reported surgeons removing healthy ovaries,
《外科档案》杂志最近有一个研究，报道外科医生摘除健康的卵巢，
operating on the wrong side of the brain, carrying out procedures on the wrong hand, elbow, eye, foot, and also mistakes born out of thinking errors.
做脑手术时弄错了左右，也会搞错要动手术的是哪只手，肘，眼睛或者脚；他们还犯一些思维上的错误。

A common thinking error of radiologists, for example -- when they look at CT scans
一个常见思维错误就是放射科医生的诊断--他们看到病人的CT扫描，
is that they're overly influenced by whatever it is that the referring physician has said that he suspects the patient's problem to be.
就会参照转介医生如何诊断病人的病症，而他们的判断就会极大的受到先前诊断的影响。
So if a radiologist is looking at the scan of a patient with suspected pneumonia, say, what happens is that,
所以如果一名放射科医生接待一个被诊断为疑似肺炎的病人，看着扫描结果，可能有这种情况发生：
if they see evidence of pneumonia on the scan, they literally stop looking at it
他们一旦看到屏幕上有肺炎的症状，就不会进一步观察，
thereby missing the tumor sitting three inches below on the patient's lungs.
结果就忽略了病人肺部几英寸以下还有肿瘤。
I've shared with you so far some insights into the world of experts.
目前为止我已经跟大家分享了一些我对专家的看法。
These are, of course, not the only insights I could share,
当然我不只想跟大家分享这些想法，
but I hope they give you a clear sense at least of why we need to stop kowtowing to them,
而是希望至少让大家明白我们为什么要停止崇拜专家，
why we need to rebel and why we need to switch our independent decision-making capabilities on.
为什么要质疑他们的想法，以及为什么要保持我们的独立决策能力常启常新。
But how can we do this? Well for the sake of time, I want to focus on just three strategies.
具体要怎样做呢？因为时间有限，我在这里主要讲三种方法。
First, we've got to be ready and willing to take experts on and dispense with this notion of them as modern-day apostles.
第一，我们应该自愿主动的反对专家的意见，摒弃那种把他们当成现世圣人的想法。
This doesn't mean having to get a Ph.D. in every single subject, you'll be relieved to hear.
这不是意味着你得成为某个学科的博士，大家听到这句会松一口气。
But it does mean persisting in the face of their inevitable annoyance when, for example,
而是说，比如，专家难免会表现的不耐烦，例如，
we want them to explain things to us in language that we can actually understand.
当我们想让专家用我们能明白的话解释一些事情时。
Why was it that, when I had an operation, my doctor said to me, "Beware, Ms. Hertz, of hyperpyrexia,"
为什么这么说呢，有一次我要做个手术，我的医生跟我说，“赫兹小姐，小心体温过高的症状，”
when he could have just as easily said, "Watch out for a high fever."
他可以简单的说：“小心别发高烧。”
You see, being ready to take experts on is about also being willing to dig behind their graphs, their equations, their forecasts, their prophecies,
听从专家的意见，也就是要主动的探寻他们给出的图表，等式，诊断，估计等等背后真正的涵义，
and being armed with the questions to do that -- questions like:
还要自己准备问一些问题，比如：
What are the assumptions that underpin this? What is the evidence upon which this is based?
你是基于何种推断得出这种观点？推断的依据是什么？
What has your investigation focused on? And what has it ignored?
你的检查是集中于哪方面，忽略了什么方面？
It recently came out that experts trialing drugs before they come to market typically trial drugs first,
最近有研究表明，有些专家对即将上市药品进行测试的时候，
primarily on male animals and then, primarily on men.
他们通常首先在雄性动物身上试验，然后在男性身上试验。
It seems that they've somehow overlooked the fact that over half the world's population are women.
他们好像忽略了一个事实：世界上超过一半的人口是女性。
And women have drawn the short medical straw because it now turns out that many of these drugs don't work nearly as well on women as they do on men
所以女性在医药测试中总是倒霉的一方，因为现在证明许多药品对男性有效，对女性效果却不大，
and the drugs that do work well work so well that they're actively harmful for women to take.
甚至由于药品药性过于强大，女性服用后反而对身体造成很大伤害。
Being a rebel is about recognizing that experts' assumptions and their methodologies can easily be flawed.
所以质疑专家实际上是认识到专家的推断、他们采用的方法也往往是有缺陷的。
Second, we need to create the space for what I call "managed dissent."
第二，我们需要营造出一种空间，我称之为“管理性异见”。
If we are to shift paradigms, if we are to make breakthroughs, if we are to destroy myths,
如果我们要转变思维和行为模式，取得突破，打破神秘，
we need to create an environment in which expert ideas are battling it out,
我们就需要培养出一种氛围，让专家的想法打出胜负，
in which we're bringing in new, diverse, discordant, heretical views into the discussion, fearlessly,
让我们大胆地提出各种新的不和谐的声音和离经叛道的想法，在参与讨论的过程中我们要无所畏惧。
in the knowledge that progress comes about, not only from the creation of ideas, but also from their destruction
因为我们知道进步不仅来自于提出新构想，也来源于解构旧想法；
and also from the knowledge that, by surrounding ourselves by divergent, discordant, heretical views.
因为我们知道我们必须敞开心胸接受各种不和谐的声音，接受离经叛道的想法。
All the research now shows us that this actually makes us smarter.
所有研究表明，只有这样，我们才会变得更聪明。
Encouraging dissent is a rebellious notion because it goes against our very instincts,
鼓励不和谐的声音其实很反叛，因为这与我们的本能背道而驰，
which are to surround ourselves with opinions and advice that we already believe or want to be true.
我们的本能是只接受那些我们已经深信或者主观上想去相信的意见和建议。
And that's why I talk about the need to actively manage dissent.
这也就是为什么我提倡需要积极的管理异见。
Google CEO Eric Schmidt is a practical practitioner of this philosophy.
谷歌首席执行官埃里克·施密特在现实中就秉承这种哲学理念。
In meetings, he looks out for the person in the room -- arms crossed, looking a bit bemused -- and draws them into the discussion,
开会时，他就望向房间里的人--他的手臂端着，神色些许困惑--他让每个人参与到讨论中来，
trying to see if they indeed are the person with a different opinion, so that they have dissent within the room.
看看这些人能否真正提出不同的意见，这样会议室内才有各种不同的声音。
Managing dissent is about recognizing the value of disagreement, discord and difference.
管理异见就是认识到让各种不同声音、不同意见、百家争鸣的价值性。
But we need to go even further. We need to fundamentally redefine who it is that experts are.
但我们需要更进一步。我们需要从根本上重新定义专家的概念。
The conventional notion is that experts are people with advanced degrees, fancy titles, diplomas, best-selling books -- high-status individuals.
传统概念将专家定义为那些有高等学位、有名头衔、持各种证书或写过畅销书的人--都是有名望的人。
But just imagine if we were to junk this notion of expertise as some sort of elite cadre and instead embrace the notion of democratized expertise
但是请想象一下，如果我们抛弃把专家的意见当成金科玉律的想法，相反，勇于接受让专业知识走向平民化的想法，
whereby expertise was not just the preserve of surgeons and CEO's, but also shop-girls -- yeah.
这样专业知识就不仅仅是外科医生或首席执行官的独有领域，也可以由店员传授给你。
Best Buy, the consumer electronics company, gets all its employees
美国百思买是一家消费型电子产品公司，它鼓励公司所有员工，
the cleaners, the shop assistants, the people in the back office, not just its forecasting team -- to place bets, yes bets,
无论是保洁员，店员，还是后勤人员，都参与公司决策，而不是把这些任务留给预测团队一力承担，员工共同参谋，
on things like whether or not a product is going to sell well before Christmas,
比如某一产品能否在圣诞节前畅销，
on whether customers' new ideas are going to be or should be taken on by the company, on whether a project will come in on time.
或者顾客提出的新想法是否可以被公司采纳，某个项目能否及时进行等等。
By leveraging and by embracing the expertise within the company,
通过利用和鼓励专业知识在公司里普及，
Best Buy was able to discover, for example, that the store that it was going to open in China -- its big, grand store -- was not going to open on time.
百思买得以发现，例如，公司计划在中国开业的大型百思买商店却不能按期开业。
Because when it asked its staff, all its staff, to place their bets on whether they thought the store would open on time or not,
因为当时公司问员工，让所有的员工下注猜中国的商店能否如期开业，
a group from the finance department placed all their chips on that not happening.
公司财政部的一组员工全部都投了否定票，认为不会如期开业。
It turned out that they were aware, as no one else within the company was,
结果证明，这组员工在公司其他部门都没有意识到时候，
of a technological blip that neither the forecasting experts, nor the experts on the ground in China, were even aware of.
对技术性的故障已有先见之明，而对这种故障，无论是预测专家还是在中国的专家，都没料到。
The strategies that I have discussed this evening -- embracing dissent, taking experts on, democratizing expertise, rebellious strategies
今天晚上，我跟大家探讨的策略--欢迎不和谐声音、反对专家的意见、让专业知识走向平民化、接受不同的意见，
are strategies that I think would serve us all well to embrace as we try to deal with the challenges of these very confusing, complex, difficult times.
我认为这些策略能让我们游刃有余地应对当今这个迷乱、复杂、艰难的时代为我们带来的挑战。
For if we keep our independent decision-making part of our brains switched on,
如果我们保持大脑的决策功能时时开启，
if we challenge experts, if we're skeptical, if we devolve authority, if we are rebellious,
如果我们挑战专家，敢于质疑，瓦解所谓权威，如果我们能提出反对声音，
but also if we become much more comfortable with nuance, uncertainty and doubt,
同时，如果我们能更加坦然接受所面对的差异、不确定性和质疑，
and if we allow our experts to express themselves using those terms too, we will set ourselves up much better for the challenges of the 21st century.
如果我们也允许专家能够以这些方式来阐释他们自己，我们就能够更好的武装自己，应对21世纪的挑战。
For now, more than ever, is not the time to be blindly following, blindly accepting, blindly trusting.
现在比以往更需要我们抛弃忙从、盲目接受、盲目相信。
Now is the time to face the world with eyes wide open
现在正需要我们睁大眼睛看世界
yes, using experts to help us figure things out, for sure, I don't want to completely do myself out of a job here,
当然也需要专家帮助我们解决问题，我还不想让自己彻底失业
but being aware of their limitations and, of course, also our own. Thank you.
但是，一定要意识到专家的局限性，还有我们自己的局限性。谢谢大家。