The point is not that people are foolish. The point is that expertise is expensive, and we economise on it like everything else. Put a number on expertise and it becomes a target; put a target on it and the number stops meaning what it meant. Consider the apology. It is a small thing, and small things are where habits live. If you want to see expertise at work, watch a queue form where there is no reason for one.
What the evidence shows
The point is not that people are foolish. The point is that expertise is expensive, and we economise on it like everything else. The textbook treats expertise as a preference to be revealed. In practice it is a story we tell ourselves after the fact. The remedy is rarely exhortation. It is a change to the situation so that the easier choice is also the better one. In the studies we have, the effect is modest, reliable and almost entirely ignored by the people it describes.
The evidence here is thinner than the confident commentary suggests, and the honest position is a shrug with a direction of travel. Notice how rarely anyone is argued out of the apology, and how often they are simply moved past it by a change in circumstance. The point is not that people are foolish. The point is that expertise is expensive, and we economise on it like everything else. If you want to see expertise at work, watch a queue form where there is no reason for one.
