TOK - is it dangerous to trust experts?

Authors Avatar by dahaof (student)

After watching the incredible TED Talk video, delivered by the economist Noreena Hertz, about how reliable are sometimes the “Experts” and how risky or dangerous are for people who relies on this experts or surgeons in specific situations. Actually she is making a call to all of us, to start to be more independent and to listen to ourselves and not only to listen to “surgeons and CEOs”. Because these kind of people that are supposed to have more status, diplomas, certificates or whatever more than us, in many cases they fail or make mistakes. Although the rate of accuracy or certainty is higher than the mistake’s one, It does not mean that they are always reliable. I think that an expert it is an individual that has done outstanding works in whatsoever topic or themes that it relates to the subject of him/her. Also to be expert it must need a lot of years of experience, thus should be and adult or even an older people.  With all these characteristics I would trust them but not in a 100%, because despite they are humans (humans make errors), with the accumulation of years, every person get some sort of error, only because of the fact that the person is much older, and his/her brain isn’t that accurate as years ago. So I truly believe that always there is an uncertainty when it comes the moment to believe in an expert, so I would never trust in a 100% in an expert or in other words, I will always have at least 1 doubt from which the expert said.

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I think that people in general do believe or trust in experts when some situation or moment is dangerous or in a critic state, for example: when the parents of a patient in a hospital, receive the information that tells them that their child need some sort of operation and it is risky, but the physician say that they can operate him with a perfect accuracy and no danger, the parents would mostly trust the expert, since the substitute to this is very low. Also when some situation is in a hurry and the mind of people gets blocked because ...

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