Kerby Anderson

What are the three hardest words in the English language? Perhaps you have heard that the three hardest words to say in the English language are: I love you. I have also heard some say that the three hardest words are: I was wrong.

Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner devote a chapter to this question in one of their books. They argue that the three hardest words are: I don’t know. They lament that this is the case because it is impossible to learn everything.

Apparently, our inability to say we don’t know starts at an early age. There is the classic study of British schoolchildren who were given a story and then asked four questions about the story. Two of the questions were unanswerable. There wasn’t any information given in the story. Nevertheless, three-fourths (76%) of the students answered these questions anyway.

It becomes ever more difficult to say you don’t know as you get older. Children expect their parents to know everything, at least until they get to be teenagers. Then their parents are considered very stupid.

Government leaders and recognized experts are not expected to say they don’t know. And we have lived through a pandemic and then a political season where many of our leaders should have merely said: I don’t know.

Instead, they were confident about the value of masks and vaccines. They were confident that inflation was under control. They were confident about their proposed solutions to everything from rising crime rates to rising global temperatures.

Often these were merely opinions. As Daniel Patrick Moynihan observed, “Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion, but not to their own facts.”

That is why we need some skepticism and biblical discernment, especially when the so-called experts make such confident statements and predictions. Sometimes the best answer is merely: I don’t know.