Why clever people do stupid things
A few years ago I published a post, which I later republished here, called "When clever people do stupid things."
1) The stupid mistakes which do the most damage are rarely made by stupid individuals, but by intelligent ones – stupid people are rarely in a position to do as much damage as intelligent people.
2) The more eminent you are the more you need to listen to others, because the greater the risk that you. an others who might hesitate to challenge you when they should, may be too inclined to always assume you are right.
3) Our society needs to recognise that expertise in one area often does not translate into expertise in others
This week the New Scientist has an interesting article on a very similar subject:
WHY clever people do stupid things.
There is a link here to the opening words of the article if you don't subscribe online to the magazine and to the whole thing if you do.
They also point out that there are certain intellectual traps which can be MORE likely to catch intelligent people.
The human brain, incredible though it is, has certain inbuilt biases.
We can correct for them if we pay attention to things like
The New Scientist article points out that some traps such as the Dunning-Kruger effect (when people drastically over-estimate their own competence and knowledge in an area because they are so ignorant of it that they do not have the information or skills to accurately measure their own competence) which people might think only apply to those they consider "stupid" - can apply to everyone, not just those with low general intelligence.
Indeed it can particularly be a problem for very clever people where someone who genuinely knows themselves to be expert in one field of knowledge may over-estimate the extent to which that expertise carries over into another, possibly related field.
This is why some of the wisest human beings in history, like Socrates, were the most aware of the limitations of their knowledge. He is sometimes quoted as having said this:
There is no proof that Socrates was the originator of the words above, which may be an attempt to explain the views of Socrates by Plato rather than an exact quote from him.
However, it does appear that one of the most important parts of the way that Socrates encouraged people to think was the need to be aware of what you do not know. That is very good advice.
The points I made included
2) The more eminent you are the more you need to listen to others, because the greater the risk that you. an others who might hesitate to challenge you when they should, may be too inclined to always assume you are right.
3) Our society needs to recognise that expertise in one area often does not translate into expertise in others
This week the New Scientist has an interesting article on a very similar subject:
WHY clever people do stupid things.
There is a link here to the opening words of the article if you don't subscribe online to the magazine and to the whole thing if you do.
They also point out that there are certain intellectual traps which can be MORE likely to catch intelligent people.
The human brain, incredible though it is, has certain inbuilt biases.
We can correct for them if we pay attention to things like
- confirmation bias (cherry-picking the evidence by paying more attention to those parts of it which support the conclusion you want to believe)
- the backfire effect (confirmation bias so serious that evidence that your beliefs may be misguided makes you cling to them more strongly) and
The New Scientist article points out that some traps such as the Dunning-Kruger effect (when people drastically over-estimate their own competence and knowledge in an area because they are so ignorant of it that they do not have the information or skills to accurately measure their own competence) which people might think only apply to those they consider "stupid" - can apply to everyone, not just those with low general intelligence.
Indeed it can particularly be a problem for very clever people where someone who genuinely knows themselves to be expert in one field of knowledge may over-estimate the extent to which that expertise carries over into another, possibly related field.
This is why some of the wisest human beings in history, like Socrates, were the most aware of the limitations of their knowledge. He is sometimes quoted as having said this:
However, it does appear that one of the most important parts of the way that Socrates encouraged people to think was the need to be aware of what you do not know. That is very good advice.
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