56. Why Is “I Don’t Know” So Hard to Say?

Episode Summary

Executive Summary: This Freakonomics Radio FAQ episode explores why people pretend to know answers, contrasting academia’s comfort with uncertainty against business’s tendency to fake expertise. Levitt also discusses fears of doctors and hospitals, considers recertification for politicians, imagines a world run by economists, and explains the economist career path, emphasizing that real learning requires admitting ignorance and that passion is essential.

Main Topics: Pretending to know answers vs. admitting ignorance (Priority: 5/5): Levitt argues that academia rewards uncertainty and investigation, while business discourages admitting ignorance, causing people to masquerade as experts and making learning harder. Randomized experiments in business (Priority: 5/5): He says firms resist experiments because experiments begin from the premise that the answer is not already known, which blocks organizational learning. Personal fears and medical aversion (Priority: 4/5): Levitt and Dubner discuss irrational fears, especially Levitt’s fear of doctors and hospitals, traced to childhood exposure to amputees and a traumatic rat-surgery experience. Training or certifying political candidates (Priority: 4/5): Levitt is open to the idea of qualification standards for politicians, but notes implementation problems, incumbency bias, and unintended consequences. What if economists ran the world? (Priority: 4/5): Levitt says economists could improve some systems, especially health care, but would likely ignore fairness and morality and create widespread discomfort for non-economists. What being an economist is actually like (Priority: 5/5): He outlines the economist career lifecycle, from exciting ideas in college to difficult Ph.D. work to solitary research, and stresses that passion is necessary to endure the field.

Key Arguments: In academia, saying "I don't know" is the starting point for discovery; in business, pretending to know is often treated as part of the job. This culture of certainty in business is destructive because it prevents firms from learning what actually works. Randomized experiments are resisted because they force organizations to acknowledge uncertainty before acting. People in specialized roles, like marketing or HR, are especially unlikely to admit their processes may be flawed. Levitt supports the idea of certifying political candidates, but warns that any standard could be gamed by incumbents and create barriers to challengers. Economists could improve health care efficiency, but their indifference to fairness and morality would produce bad social outcomes. Economists tend to be intellectually narrow in ways that can be off-putting to non-economists, creating "large-scale nausea" in response to their policies. A career in economics is rewarding only for those with genuine passion; otherwise the field becomes tedious and competitive.

Data Points: Duration of training to answer unknown questions in research: 1–2 years - Levitt describes how academics may spend this long on a research project because they do not know the answer in advance. Length of proposed politician training: 6 months - Dubner jokes that a recertification process for candidates could require a six-month class on civics, economics, and bias concepts. Number of topics in Adil Z’s suggested political training list: about 50 - The reader’s proposal includes many concepts such as priming, confabulation, confirmation bias, and the Dunning-Kruger effect. Number of examples of medical/doctor fear source: 2 - Levitt mentions two family medical influences: his father’s VA hospital work and his grandfather’s doctoring during a stroke. Staff members named in closing credits: 6 - The episode credits multiple staff members, including Colin Campbell, Susie Lechtenberg, Diana Wynn, Catherine Wells, Bure Lamb, and Chris Bannon.

Pivotal Quotes: "I think teaching MBAs that one of the most important things you learn as an MBA is how to pretend you know the answer to any question, even though you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about." — Steve Levitt: Levitt explains how business culture rewards confidence over honesty about uncertainty. "I don't know. That's the most beautiful three words in the English language." — Stephen Dubner: Dubner frames uncertainty as intellectually valuable during the discussion about knowledge and expertise. "Mostly being an economist is pretty boring. You're mostly sitting in a room alone and you're mostly working on projects that are interesting to you but not really to anybody else in the rest of the world." — Steve Levitt: Levitt gives an honest description of day-to-day life as an economist.

Implications: The episode suggests that intellectual honesty and experimentation improve institutions, while fake certainty distorts decisions. It also warns that technical expertise without humility can mislead policy, business, and public life.