One interesting twist on the doctor example: we know she is almost always right that it's nothing, that it will all go away and that just two aspirins are ok. The article correctly points out that she will miss one or two cases where it was a terrible disease instead, and that her prescription of aspirin and to go away and rest will be misguided.
However... doctors must do more than just cure you. They must also "do no harm"; in fact that is (or should be) their default. What if she intervened more directly in more cases, maybe poked and prodded and recommended more invasive treatments? She would get more cases wrong in the opposite direction (recommending a potentially invasive or even harmful treatment when some rest and an aspirin would have sufficed), maybe resulting in accidental death through action rather than inaction.
She must be alert, but hers is a good default/heuristic. It's not the same as a rock with "TAKE ASPIRIN" written on it.
And this is just an example. I think the heuristics that work 99.9% of the time do so because they do indeed work. Erring in the opposite direction can, in some cases, be also harmful.
However... doctors must do more than just cure you. They must also "do no harm"; in fact that is (or should be) their default. What if she intervened more directly in more cases, maybe poked and prodded and recommended more invasive treatments? She would get more cases wrong in the opposite direction (recommending a potentially invasive or even harmful treatment when some rest and an aspirin would have sufficed), maybe resulting in accidental death through action rather than inaction.
She must be alert, but hers is a good default/heuristic. It's not the same as a rock with "TAKE ASPIRIN" written on it.
And this is just an example. I think the heuristics that work 99.9% of the time do so because they do indeed work. Erring in the opposite direction can, in some cases, be also harmful.