Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know About the People We Don’t Know

by Malcolm Gladwell

The fact that Nassar was doing something monstrous is exactly what makes the parents’ position so difficult. If Nassar had been rude to their daughters, they would have spoken up immediately. If their daughters had said to them on the way home that they had smelled liquor on Nassar’s breath, most parents would have leapt to attention. It is not impossible to imagine that doctors are occasionally rude or drunk. Default to truth becomes an issue when we are forced to choose between two alternatives, one of which is likely and the other of which is impossible to imagine. Is Ana Montes the most highly placed Cuban spy in history, or was Reg Brown just being paranoid? Default to truth biases us in favor of the most likely interpretation. Scott Carmichael believed Ana Montes, right up to the point where believing her became absolutely impossible. The parents did the same thing, not because they were negligent but because this is how most human beings are wired.