Listen for Hedges

Qualifiers are a feature, not a flaw. "Based on what I've seen, it looks like..." is the sound of someone who checked their own claim. "Obviously, no question..." is the sound of either deep mastery or pure bluff — and it's hard to tell which.

Hedges mean a person has considered the exceptions. In any messy field — medicine, law, money, relationships — clean and total certainty is a red flag, because reality almost never offers clean answers. When the topic is genuinely uncertain, trust the hedger over the absolutist.