Do you think that one ought to always seek advice from total strangers in order to be safeguarded from his/her own biases?
Total strangers are, of course, going to have their own biases, e.g. the availability heuristic. They also may not be domain experts in the relevant domains.
I think the title of your post does not connect very well to its body. Protecting yourself from your own biases is great, but it's hard, and substituting other people's biases is not a solution.
I graduated from high school and wish to further my education formally by studying for a bachelor's degree in order to become a medical researcher. I could, for instance, take two different academic paths:
Study Medicine at undergraduate level and then do a postdoctoral fellowship.
Study Biochemistry at undergraduate level, then study for a PhD at graduate level, and finally do a postdoctoral fellowship.
Since I will do these studies in Europe, they each take approximately the same amount of time, namely 6 to 8 years.
Do I want to do treat patients? No, I do not. But I am considering Medicine because it can be a buffer against my own mediocrity: in case I turn out to be a below average scientist, I will be screwed royally. From my personal job shadowing experience, Medicine, on the other hand, requires mere basic intellectual traits, primarily the ability to memorize heaps of information. And those I think I have. To do world-class research though I'd have to be an intellectual heavyweight, and of that I'm not so sure.
How do I decide what path to follow?
The reason I'm asking you strangers for advice is because I evidently have biases, such as the pessimism/optimism bias or the Dunning–Kruger effect, that impair my ability to reason clearly; and people who know me personally are likewise prone to make errors in advising me because of biases like, say, the Halo effect. (Come to think of it, thinking that I can't become an above average scientist is in itself a self-defeating prophecy!)
Do you think that one ought to always seek advice from total strangers in order to be safeguarded from his/her own biases?
PS: I apologize if I should have written this in a specific thread. I'll delete my article if that's necessary.