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Why Smart People Are Stupid

Posted by Soulskill on from the gotta-be-the-shoes dept.

nicholast writes "There's a good piece by Jonah Lehrer at the New Yorker about why smart people are often more likely to make cognitive errors than stupid people. The article examines research about the shortcuts that our brains take while answering questions, and explains why even the smartest people take these shortcuts too. Quoting: 'One provocative hypothesis is that the bias blind spot arises because of a mismatch between how we evaluate others and how we evaluate ourselves. When considering the irrational choices of a stranger, for instance, we are forced to rely on behavioral information; we see their biases from the outside, which allows us to glimpse their systematic thinking errors. However, when assessing our own bad choices, we tend to engage in elaborate introspection. We scrutinize our motivations and search for relevant reasons; we lament our mistakes to therapists and ruminate on the beliefs that led us astray. The problem with this introspective approach is that the driving forces behind biases—the root causes of our irrationality—are largely unconscious, which means they remain invisible to self-analysis and impermeable to intelligence. In fact, introspection can actually compound the error, blinding us to those primal processes responsible for many of our everyday failings.'"

6 of 337 comments (clear)

  1. Yeah... by fredprado · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yes you commit more mistakes when you think more about things. Guess what, you also reach a lot more correct conclusions. The best way to avoid making mistakes is not doing anything at all. Same principle.

    1. Re:Yeah... by Hope+Thelps · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The best way to avoid making mistakes is not doing anything at all.

      Unfortunately it's not that easy. My biggest mistakes have consisted of not doing things.

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      To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem. ~ h2g2
  2. SAT socres? by whoever57 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Although we assume that intelligence is a buffer against biasâ"thatâ(TM)s why those with higher S.A.T. scores think they are less prone to these universal thinking mistakesâ"it can actually be a subtle curse.

    Or perhaps high SAT scores do not correlate well with intelligence, but rather correlate with being able to answer questions quickly through the use of mental shortcuts or the ability to recall what was learned through rote learning?

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    The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
  3. My theory by Jamu · · Score: 5, Insightful

    My theory is that smart people are mostly stupid, and that stupid people are fully stupid.

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    Who ordered that?
  4. Case in point. by dmomo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Try reading that article. It's full of smart sounding long-winded sentences, which all basically translate to: "Dude, you're overthinking it".

    Then, the article ronically ends with: "We spin eloquent stories, but these stories miss the point. The more we attempt to know ourselves, the less we actually understand."

    Dude...

  5. Re:I feel stupider just reading the summary by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Indeed. One of the things that I find is a problem with really bright people is overconfidence, a belief that because they are brilliant in one area, they therefore are brilliant in all areas. You find this sort of thing with engineers who think they are scientists, doctors who think they are scientists, or scientists who make fools of themselves by making elaborate and tragically awful claims in areas where they have no expertise.

    True polymaths are probably so rare that even the most seasoned and well-connected academic won't meet one.

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