The care and keeping of experts

Some highlights from this video:

When  people are told that an expert is dealing with it, their brain scans show a flatlining of the decision-making parts of the brain. Experts often get things wrong in areas where, actually, people know their own situations better. The mistakes the experts make cited here are quite frightening: they (we!) are influenced by confirmation bias and pre-judice. We have a right to be spoken to in ways we understand: informed consent means we are informed not blinded by science (literally or metaphorically). Expert ideas need to prove their worth; survive against other viwes: dissent can produce better ideas than the received wisdom (which is what experts are often expert in). We need to use experts, but we should be aware of limitations

Part of my interest is is noticing that the 'expert effect' is to turn of people's decision-making. This is presumably related to the basic mechanism of being led and of submerging ourselves in the group. This would be a basic mechanism for social co-ordination either by a distinct leader or by our reading of the 'group mind' (cued by all sorts of non-verbal signals as well as other cultural and sometimes linguistic clues). It may be why a mob can be more stupid than individual members -in some conditions. -This video actually mentions conditions that can be created to actually crowd-source knowledge and judgement in ways that can be more intelligent than the experts (and The Wisdom of Crowds would be a good book to find out more about the conditions for the crowd to be cleverer than any individual).