The Traps of Expertise and Respectful Dissent.

 If all you have is a hammer, the cliche goes, every problem looks like a nail.

Another way of putting it might be is that if you are operating from inside a particular speciality, other ideas and options, from outside the silo, get excluded. 

Group-think is a working example of how decision making can be skewed, and the classical example is the Challenger Shuttle Explosion, where internal pressure to conform over-rode other considerations, including the technical.

Another example of experts succumbing to their own expertise was before the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. Israeli intelligence's 'won't happen' mindset only allowed them to realise there was going to be an invasion a few hours before it happened, despite very clear signs of troops massing on the border, and highly visible preparations to make a crossing of the Suez Canal.

Not wanting to be caught out again, the tenth man principle was instituted; where one person in a group is specifically tasked to be the 'devil's advocate'. Their job is to test the prevailing ideas for flaws, bias, mistakes, and all the other fallible cognitive shortcuts we take. That the person is specifically tasked to do this as part of the decision making process means it won't be career limiting and helps assure vigorous debate over 'what everybody unquestionably knows is right' - until it isn't.

Now: I wonder if there is a place for that process in our public decision making? It would certainly be better than unintended, but foreseeable, circumstances.