Certainty：Over-rated and Over-rewarded
Type the words "kind of" or "perhaps" into an email in Microsoft Outlook and the program might well tell you to think again. If the Al-powered "Microsoft Editor" judges that you are not sounding 1 enough, it will soon give you a word of warning:" Words expressing uncertainty will 2 your impact."
To me, this suggestion precisely expresses something we've got wrong in society. We live in a world that 3 those who speak with confidence-even when that is misplaced-and gives very little opportunity to perform to those who 4 doubt. "We tend to listen to those experts who tell us a simple, clear and confident story. Why? Because that's 5 satisfying," says Dan Gardner, author of Future Babble, "That's saying let me sweep away the uncertainty for you'."
Research shows that the human brain is "programmed" to hate 6: a 2016 study found that when volunteers were given electric shocks, their stress levels were highest when they had no idea whether they were going to be given a shock-higher even than subjects who were told they would 7 get one.
We should first know that while confident-sounding experts might be giving us what our brains desire, the 8 they are providing is probably false. Psychologist Philip Tetlock divided up forecasters into "foxes" and "hedgehogs". Foxes consider all sorts of different approaches sand perspectives, and combine those into distinct conclusions. 9, hedgehogs tend to view the world through the lens of one single defining idea. That makes the hedgehogs 10 forecasters but more likely to get attention.
Perhaps we care less about the truth and more about enjoying some sense of 11 however short-lived that might be. But wouldn't it be better if we held experts to account? Mr. Gardner suggests tagging speakers with some kind of record of previous 12 much as we are given performance statistics for racehorses or baseball players.
Highly confident statements also 13 polarization (两极化), encouraging others to respond in the same kind of language when they disagree. "There's a natural tendency to push back with equal amounts of 14 says Daniel Drezner, a political scientist.
Is it time to give a bit more attention to the 15? Full of certainty on the need to stop paying so much attention to those expressing certainty, I say yes.
