I'm not even telling you the story because I think we should be running more carefully controlled randomized trials in all aspects of public policy,
我跟你说这个故事也不是因为我认为,我们在公共政策的各个方面,做随机抽样试验时,应该更小心,
although I think that would also be completely awesome.
虽然我觉得这样做真的很好。
I'm telling you this story because Archie Cochrane, all his life, fought against a terrible affliction,
我告诉你这个故事是因为阿奇·卡克伦的一生, 都在与一种可怕的痛苦做斗争。
and he realized it was debilitating to individuals and it was corrosive to societies.
而且他认识到这是一种削弱个人和腐蚀社会的东西。
And he had a name for it. He called it the God complex.
他为它取了个名字,他把它称为“万能神力”。
Now I can describe the symptoms of the God complex very, very easily.
现在我可以来描述一下“万能神力”的症状,非常非常简单。
So the symptoms of the complex are, no matter how complicated the problem,
“万能神力”的症状是:无论问题多么复杂,
you have an absolutely overwhelming belief that you are infallibly right in your solution.
你还是绝对彻底地相信,你的解决方案是准确无误的。
Now Archie was a doctor, so he hung around with doctors a lot.
阿奇是个医生,他一直和医生们在一起。
And doctors suffer from the God complex a lot.
医生就常常患有这种毛病。
Now I'm an economist, I'm not a doctor, but I see the God complex around me all the time in my fellow economists.
我是个经济学家,我不是医生,我身边的经济学家们,也经常会出现这种“万能神力”的症状。
I see it in our business leaders.
我看见它存在于我们的商业领袖身上。
I see it in the politicians we vote for -- people who, in the face of an incredibly complicated world,
我们看见它存在于我们推选的政客身上——这些人面对这及其复杂的情况时,
are nevertheless absolutely convinced that they understand the way that the world works.
仍然绝对坚信,他们知道这个世界是怎样运转的。
And you know, with the future billions that we've been hearing about, the world is simply far too complex to understand in that way.
而你们知道,我们在这里听到的未来的数十亿人的种种,用那种方法来理解这个复杂的世界显然是太简单化了。