> People who spend a lifetime learning about something will, on average, make better decisions about that thing then you or I. I'm not convinced this is true.

> People who spend a lifetime learning about something will, on average, make better decisions about that thing then you or I. I'm not convinced this is true. If you spend a lifetime doing something then I'd agree you'd be better than average at it. In such cases experts do not face much scrutiny, there's little doubt on a pilot's skill at flying a plane and no sane person thinks they are better at chess than Magnus Carlsen. What is happening now is that we are taking people who have merely studied something extensively and asserting that knowledge gives them superior insight into decisions about the future. These "experts" might even be directionally right more often than an average person but that isn't enough. If expertise through a lifetime of learning leads to your confidence in your own abilities outpacing your actual abilities than they are going to make worse decisions than a lay person who is cautious in the face of uncertainty. Examples of this effect are abundant, the greatest team of financial experts ever assembled (LTCM) managed to lose every penny and then some while my parents 401k remained solvent. There's good reason to believe a life insulated from the ups and downs of normal life leads to suboptimal risk judgement compared to a less educated person. There's a clear assymetry between overskepticism and overconfidence, the latter hurts you far more than the former. To suggest that skepticism is the more dangerous of the two denies the reality of most of the largest disasters of the last century.