Guest: August Turak in Raleigh, NC in Eastern Time via phone, Skype, Zoom
Throughout the current pandemic, many pundits have argued that we should ignore the politicians in favor of “listening to the experts.” Though science deserves our respect and it is usually good medicine to follow doctor’s orders, there is also plenty of room for ambivalence concerning this well-intentioned advice.
Joining us for this discussion is August Turak, former CEO of a high-tech company and winner of the $100,000 John Templeton Foundation Prize for his book, Brother John.
Q&A:
- Question: Well established and acknowledged experts often don’t agree. When this happens, it is up to politicians and other elected or appointed individuals to decide. You argue that it is an unenviable task: When you are right the expert gets the credit. If you are wrong, you “should’ve listened to the experts!” Can you expand on what the term “expert” implies?
Answer: The word “expert” implies a narrow field of “expertise.” Big problems are big precisely because they are complex and bring many different and often competing interests and trade-offs into play. Big problems are never as straightforward as a math problem, and very few experts or scientists are qualified to consider the Big Picture: they often miss the unintended consequences. It is relatively easy for an ecologist, for example, to advise an immediate halt to the deforestation of the rain forests if she does not have to worry about starving all the subsistence slash-and-burn farmers doing all the deforesting.
- Question: In a crisis, what differentiates the tasks of leaders and experts?
Answer: Making the right decision amidst a myriad of competing interests and outcomes is what leaders and politicians are hired or elected to do, and there is no substitute for having people to do this job. And yes, expert advice within the expert’s legitimate given expertise is essential.
- Question: How do you balance expert advice with the decision-making process?
Answer: Experts advise, but politicians and leaders must decide. In business we call the experts “staff” and the decisionmakers “line”. In military matters for example, the generals are the experts, yet in our system no one would seriously argue that the generals should decide if and when we go to war. In this sense the generals function as staff, not line. Yes, the politicians should consult and listen to the generals—as well as economists, peace advocates, diplomats, clergymen, and often their spouses—but ultimately going to war is a political, not a military decision.
- Question: What about the argument that there is a collective wisdom in scientific consensus?
Answer: Even a consensus of experts can be dead wrong. I have been around long enough to have lived through more than a few rounds of experts making dire predictions that have not panned out. Fears of a “population bomb” have been replaced by fears of too few people in places like Germany. China is beginning to regret listening to the experts who talked them into their ‘One Child’ policy. Now there are not enough women to marry all the boy babies preferred by couples, and not enough young people to support the old. It’s the law of unintended consequences.
- Questions: Do you have other examples?
Answer: The consensus among the experts was that Peak Oil would happen back in the 1980s, and that we would be experiencing massive shortages by now. Today the world is awash in oil. OPEC just announced a huge cut in supply, yet now the experts are saying that is not even half enough cuts to prop up prices. On an inflation-adjusted basis, we are buying gas at 1932 prices. Where are all the experts now who told us that “BIG OIL” was controlling the world and artificially keeping the price of oil in the stratosphere? Investing in Big Oil companies like Exxon has been “dead money” for many years now. I know; I am an investor! Warren Buffet likes to say that stock market experts are only good for one thing: making fortune tellers look good.
- Question: You argue that we should remember that experts are human beings too. What do you mean by that?
Answer: Experts are often too conservative. They have reputations to defend, egos to buffer, and families to support just like the rest of us. My old business mentor used to say that the most common expert advice he got was all the reasons why he shouldn’t do it. It is no secret in business or in science that most innovation happens at the expense of the prevailing consensus among the experts.
- Question: How should we respond the next time someone says, “Trust me; I’m a doctor,” or “I’m from the government and I’m here to help you?”
Answer: I love science and I trust my doctor. As the CEO of my own software company, I worked hard to surround myself with expert advice—especially when these experts did not agree with each other. But there is no substitute for doing your own thinking as well. Experts and decisionmakers are engaged in a delicate balancing act, and my own experience has taught me to empathize with both.
- Question: Any final thoughts?
Answer: Someone once said that wisdom is the ability to hold two conflicting points of view in your head at the same time and still do the right thing. Many of our greatest heroes, like Galileo, became our heroes because they had the guts to buck the consensus, question orthodoxy, and go against the grain of their times. In the end, it isn’t a question of listening or not listening to the experts. It is a question of which experts to listen to. It is also a question of when to listen to the experts and when to listen to your intuition or conscience. These are not easy questions to answer, and it is the glib, oversimplification inherent in the “listen to the experts” mantra to which I am objecting, not expertise itself.
AUGUST TURAK is a highly successful entrepreneur, award-winning author, speaker, and contributor for Forbes and the BBC. He is the founder of the educational nonprofit the Self Knowledge Symposium Foundation (SKSF). As a frequent guest, Turak has been living and working alongside the monks of Mepkin Abbey since 1996. His latest book is “Brother John: A Monk, a Pilgrim, and the Purpose of Life,” published by Clovercroft.
