When Can You Trust the Experts?: How to Tell Good Science from Bad in Education

by Daniel T. Willingham

In Chapter One, we saw that we believe things (or not) partly due to the presence of peripheral cues—“peripheral” meaning that they are aspects of the situation that are irrelevant to whether or not the message is really true (for example, the attractiveness of the speaker or the length of the message). Although we are seldom aware that they influence us, these cues have an impact even when we consciously try to evaluate the logic and factual basis of a persuasive message. We also saw that we have a broad bias to believe new information if it is consistent with what we already believe, and we criticize new information that is inconsistent with our beliefs. To protect ourselves from believing false things, we need to (1) be aware of the peripheral cues that persuade, so that we can discount them, and (2) be aware of the beliefs we now hold, because they will bias how we evaluate new information.