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Narrated by:
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George K. Wilson
About this listen
Why Experts (Scientists, Finance Wizards, Doctors, Relationship Gurus, Celebrity CEOs, High-Powered Consultants, Health Officials and More) Keep Failing Us - and How to Know When Not to Trust Them
Our investmeents are devastated, obesity is epidemic, blue-chip companies circle the drain, and popular medications turn out to be ineffective and even dangerous. What happened? Didn't we listen to the scientists, economists, and other experts who promised us that if we followed their advice all would be well?
Actually, those experts are a big reason we're in this mess. Their expert counsel usually turns out to be wrong - often wildly so. Wrong reveals the dangerously distorted ways experts come up with their advice and why the most heavily flawed conclusions end up getting the most attention - all the more so in the online era. But there's hope: Wrong spells out the means by which every individual and organization can do a better job of unearthing the crucial bits of right within a vast avalanche of misleading pronouncements.
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By: Gary Greenberg
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The Panic Virus
- A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear
- By: Seth Mnookin
- Narrated by: Dan John Miller
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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The Panic Virus is a gripping scientific detective story about how grassroots radicals, snake-oil salesmen, and cynical journalists have perpetrated the biggest health-scare hoax of all time. It explores what happens when the media treats all viewpoints as equally valid, regardless of facts, from parents who are convinced that vaccines caused their children's autism to right-wing radicals who believe that climate change is a myth
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Incredible thorough journey
- By Rachel Dewald on 03-22-11
By: Seth Mnookin
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The Book of Why
- The New Science of Cause and Effect
- By: Judea Pearl, Dana Mackenzie
- Narrated by: Mel Foster
- Length: 15 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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"Correlation does not imply causation". This mantra has been invoked by scientists for decades and has led to a virtual prohibition on causal talk. But today, that taboo is dead. The causal revolution, sparked by Judea Pearl and his colleagues, has cut through a century of confusion and placed causality - the study of cause and effect - on a firm scientific basis.
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Great book! Not a great audiobook.
- By rrwright on 05-30-18
By: Judea Pearl, and others
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The Halo Effect
- ...and the 8 Other Business Delusions That Deceive Managers
- By: Phil Rosenzweig
- Narrated by: Jim Manchester
- Length: 6 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Much of our business thinking is shaped by delusions that distort our understanding of the real reasons for a company's performance. The most pervasive delusion is the Halo Effect. When a company's sales and profits are up, people often conclude that it has a brilliant strategy, a visionary leader, capable employees, and a superb corporate culture. When performance falters, they conclude the opposite. In fact, little may have changed.
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slow start
- By michael on 01-03-10
By: Phil Rosenzweig
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Average is Over
- Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation
- By: Tyler Cowen
- Narrated by: Andrew Garman
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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The widening gap between rich and poor means dealing with one big, uncomfortable truth: If you're not at the top, you're at the bottom. The global labor market is changing radically thanks to growth at the high end and the low. About three quarters of the jobs created in the United States since the great recession pay only a bit more than minimum wage. Still, the United States has more millionaires and billionaires than any country ever, and we continue to mint them.
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Disappointing analysis of future
- By JKBart on 12-10-13
By: Tyler Cowen
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The Filter Bubble
- What the Internet Is Hiding from You
- By: Eli Pariser
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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In December 2009, Google began customizing its search results for each user. Instead of giving you the most broadly popular result, Google now tries to predict what you are most likely to click on. According to MoveOn.org board president Eli Pariser, Google's change in policy is symptomatic of the most significant shift to take place on the Web in recent years: the rise of personalization.
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Now in the top 3 best books I've ever read
- By Brian Esserlieu on 05-26-11
By: Eli Pariser
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Sway
- The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior
- By: Rom Brafman, Ori Brafman
- Narrated by: John Apicella
- Length: 4 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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A Harvard Business School student pays over $200 for a $20 bill. Washington, D.C., commuters ignore a free subway concert by a violin prodigy. A veteran airline pilot attempts to take off without control-tower clearance and collides with another plane on the runway. Why do we do the wildly irrational things we sometimes do?
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Disappointing book
- By Martin Proulx on 12-10-08
By: Rom Brafman, and others
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Blind Spots
- Why We Fail to Do What’s Right and What to Do about It
- By: Max H. Bazerman, Ann E. Tenbrunsel
- Narrated by: Kate McQueen
- Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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When confronted with an ethical dilemma, most of us like to think we would stand up for our principles. But we are not as ethical as we think we are. In Blind Spots, leading business ethicists Max Bazerman and Ann Tenbrunsel examine the ways we overestimate our ability to do what is right and how we act unethically without meaning to.
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Great book! Poor narration
- By Susie on 11-20-17
By: Max H. Bazerman, and others
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In Defense of Troublemakers
- The Power of Dissent in Life and Business
- By: Charlan Nemeth
- Narrated by: Joyce Bean
- Length: 6 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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We've decided by consensus that consensus is good. In In Defense of Troublemakers, psychologist Charlan Nemeth argues that this principle is completely wrong: left unchallenged, the majority opinion is often biased, unoriginal, or false. It leads planes and markets to crash, causes juries to convict innocent people, and can quite literally make people think blue is green. In the name of comity, we embrace stupidity. We can make better decisions by embracing dissent. Dissent forces us to question the status quo, consider more information, and engage in creative decision-making.
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A Good Review of Group Thinking
- By J. Justice on 03-20-24
By: Charlan Nemeth
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Success and Luck
- Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy
- By: Robert H. Frank
- Narrated by: Robert H. Frank
- Length: 5 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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How important is luck in economic success? No question more reliably divides conservatives from liberals. As conservatives correctly observe, people who amass great fortunes are almost always talented and hardworking. But liberals are also correct to note that countless others have those same qualities yet never earn much. In recent years, social scientists have discovered that chance plays a much larger role in important life outcomes than most people imagine.
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Not what is advertised
- By Andre on 04-18-17
By: Robert H. Frank
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Seeing What Others Don't
- The Remarkable Ways We Gain Insights
- By: Gary Klein
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 9 hrs
- Unabridged
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Insights—like Darwin's understanding of the way evolution actually works, and Watson and Crick's breakthrough discoveries about the structure of DNA-can change the world. We also need insights into the everyday things that frustrate and confuse us so that we can more effectively solve problems and get things done. Yet we know very little about when, why, or how insights are formed—or what blocks them. In Seeing What Others Don't, renowned cognitive psychologist Gary Klein unravels the mystery.
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Not enough actionable ideas
- By Blair on 02-24-15
By: Gary Klein
What listeners say about Wrong
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Michael
- 07-05-10
Finally
This book was a long time in coming.
I have long noticed the veritable deluge of information that has come down the pipe in my short life and was often baffled by the contratdictory and almost "fad" like public responses to advice that I distictly remember hearing the opposite to somewhere else or earlier. These experts, these defenders of the public good, these holderes of the flame of knowledge, have their record layed before our feet, thanks to the internet and finally allowed our short memorys to slightly lengthen. We can now easily look back at that record and see expert advice for what it really is, most of the time, thinking out loud and the trusting public swaying to its rhythm, but no more.
With so much info out there it is our responsibility to know that there is a lot of info out there. In other words, not to change "what" we think of expert advice, but instead to change "how". This book was a breath of fresh air and the paradox of the whole thing was a bit of lemon in the gin. Enjoy.
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7 people found this helpful
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- Ray
- 07-27-11
Primer for the Pseudo-Expert Genre
Freedman touches on the expected topics of medicine and finance, but then he almost hedges too much when he attempts to be even handed. Something akin to saying "Experts are widely documented to be as wrong as the guy sitting next to you at work, but" . . . and then the "but" gets drawn out in such a way that he makes it clear that he really doesn't want anyone to be upset with him.
He takes umbrage with an editor no one has ever heard of at a little-read women's health magazine, but ignores the Dalai Lama of pseudo-expert knowledge, Malcolm Gladwell. (Although Gladwell does get a very brief mention in an appendix.) That seems a little cowardly. And then of course there are his own biases to contend with that really are not justified despite his token admission that he too might be wrong. (Note, a firm stance on a topic or opinion would be welcome. Instead he hem-haws around the idea that "experts are bad/experts are the best we have" and then just back-doors his own bias at the end of a given topic so as to seem detached from the subject.)
Once one has read most of the titles in this genre, there begins to be a pattern of thought. One viewpoint is that there is too much information available to the general public and it's not good for us. It's mostly implied at this point, but they are essentially saying that we need some sort of filters or regulation, perhaps some sort of licensing should be required to post something on the internet. (This is actually mentioned in Freedman's book.) Freedman it seems then, is seeking to follow Schwartz, Gladwell, Ariely, et al. in this line of thought on regulated information.
If one is interested in genuine skeptical inquiry without the ideological baggage the best place to start would be any of Nassim Taleb's books in my opinion.
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4 people found this helpful
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- anonEmous
- 07-23-11
A Little Ho-Hum
Now, while I can't seriously disagree with any of Freedman's findings, I did feel at the end of this a-book that nothing was presented that radically (or even appreciably) changed my view on anything. He basically details how the audience is (with the aid of the internet) getting more skeptical and the so-called experts are now effectively being exposed for the frauds and hucksters they often are and how we often fall into error. I particularily appreciated how the author is willing to concede his own possible misapprehensions in this a-book. Maybe I expected too much but even while I was nodding throughout I had hoped for some unexpected insights.
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- Art
- 06-23-12
Not what I was looking for
Any additional comments?
This was a good overview of how to begin thinking critically about expert advice. I was looking for a more in depth exploration and examples of problems with cognitive biases on the part of experts.
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