"If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?"-Albert Einstein"There is always a well-known solution to every human problem ù neat, plausible, and wrong."-H.L. Mencken"If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts..."-Francis Bacon"Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken."-Bertrand Russell"No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by the experience of life as that you never should trust experts."-Lord SalisburyOur Investments 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, doctors, management gurus, psychologists, 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. According to the acclaimed business and science writer David H. Freedman, experts' professional wisdom about everything from what to eat, to how to raise our children, to the medicine we take, to school improvement, to how to run a business, usually turns out to be incorrectùoften wildly so. Wrong reveals the dangerously distorted ways in which experts come up with this advice, and why the most heavily flawed conclusions generally get the most attentionùall the more so in the online era. Freedman exposes the deep biases and career pressures that twist and corrupt research, the shocking sloppiness and manipulation underlying the gathering and analysis of data at top institutions, and the foolish thinking behind our most trusted management, dieting, and parenting wisdom. The result: some of the hottest and most acclaimed advice proves to be the most disastrous.Fortunately, 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 rightness within a vast avalanche of misleading pronouncementsùsome of which are literally a matter of life and death.A groundbreaking antidote to the accepted wisdom that "experts know best," Wrong is an eye-opening exploration of why experts are constantly misleading usùand what we can do about it. Read Less