We Are All Confident Idiots

[bilby]

Apart from me, of course; I am sure that I am right about pretty much everything

Interesting article from David Dunning (known for the Dunning-Kruger effect): http://www.psmag.com/health-and-behavior/confident-idiots-92793.

I think it is well worth a read; although I guess I might be mistaken.

The American author and aphorist William Feather once wrote that being educated means “being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don’t.” As it turns out, this simple ideal is extremely hard to achieve. Although what we know is often perceptible to us, even the broad outlines of what we don’t know are all too often completely invisible. To a great degree, we fail to recognize the frequency and scope of our ignorance.
...
What’s curious is that, in many cases, incompetence does not leave people disoriented, perplexed, or cautious. Instead, the incompetent are often blessed with an inappropriate confidence, buoyed by something that feels to them like knowledge.

It is perhaps not so surprising to hear that facts, logic, and knowledge can be bent to accord with a person’s subjective worldview; after all, we accuse our political opponents of this kind of “motivated reasoning” all the time. But the extent of this bending can be remarkable. In ongoing work with the political scientist Peter Enns, my lab has found that a person’s politics can warp other sets of logical or factual beliefs so much that they come into direct contradiction with one another.

The built-in features of our brains, and the life experiences we accumulate, do in fact fill our heads with immense knowledge; what they do not confer is insight into the dimensions of our ignorance. As such, wisdom may not involve facts and formulas so much as the ability to recognize when a limit has been reached. Stumbling through all our cognitive clutter just to recognize a true “I don’t know” may not constitute failure as much as it does an enviable success, a crucial signpost that shows us we are traveling in the right direction toward the truth.

 

[fromderinside]

Yes. We are probably idiots. We are evolved from something near viruses for goodness sake.

Yet there is that ant hill of confirmed, repeatable, data that is helping mankind to make lots of new stuff that just keeps getting bigger and more reliable.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Idiots compared to whom? God? No, we can only compare ourselves to animals and other human beings.

The evidence then is that many people are idiots but only relatively to other people who are not so stupid. We are obviously smarter than any other animal on this planet. Well, as far as we know.

Our social nature is probably responsible for the large number of idiots on this planet. First, a given proportion of relatively idiot people is inevitable, through accident of birth so to speak. Then the relative solidarity provided by living in communities protects idiots against themselves, at least to a certain extent. Idiots are also most useful to other people. That's true in everyday life but it's also true at the level of our social organisation. Idiots can do some of the jobs we don't want to do ourselves. So, it goes with the territory. You don't like it, leave Earth.

I would object to the idea that people are real idiots just because they behave like idiots. People are idiots in the contexts where they behave as idiots. I believe many could be made to improve their "score" simply by changing their lifestyle, their environment, the people they have to mingle with, etc. You could say that smart people are not smart enough to change society so that idiocy would eventually disappear. Or is it that they don't really care?

Think also of this vicious circle: Get idiots to teach children just because there is not enough smart people available or willing to do the job for the price. Idiot politicians, idiot citizens. Garbage in, garbage out.

Brothers and sisters, let's come together and solve this problem!
EB

 

[braces_for_impact]

I had this article in my pocket for later. Seems like a good time to go read it.

 

[Kharakov]

The best thing is when someone accuses you of experiencing the DK effect, you can be like "yup, there is definitely a bit of that going on here."

 

[Bronzeage]

I offer two quotes, each from an article quoted in a current TFT thread.

A leading researcher on the psychology of human wrongness sets us straight.

or,

A landmark study involving 100 scientists from around the world has tried to replicate the findings of 270 recent findings from highly ranked psychology journals and by one measure, only 36 percent turned up the same results. That means that for over half the studies, when scientists used the same methodology, they could not come up with the same results.

We need to remember, a smart person always has limited options in any situations. That's the nature of life. If a problem were easy to solve, it wouldn't be a problem. The harder a problem, the fewer viable solutions there are, and if we are fortunate, there will be at least one.

The smart person may have only one choice, which is actually no choice at all.

The dumb motherfucker has a universe of possible solutions from which to choose. None of this is new. It was true when we were still chasing buffalo with sharp sticks.

 

[Perspicuo]

That's why we need math and science, because we're amazingly bad at reckoning most anything.

Dan Ariely seems to me the most lucid and entertaining person that I've ever watch describe it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfcro5iM5vw

 

[Perspicuo]

Errata: "that I've ever watched describe it:"

 

[rousseau]

Yea I'd liken this to an ancient survival mechanism. If someone is severely incompetent and consequently believes themselves to be worthless, what's the motivation to continue seeking out partners and the like? The blind confidence will carry people through blunder after blunder without a need for self-awareness. Then, people who actually lack competence and self-confidence are selected out, because their lack of confidence in themselves becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and they're less likely to reproduce. Add it all up and you've got a population of confident people who aren't necessarily that intelligent.

But there's the thing, if we agree that evolution has no purpose, which it doesn't, then there should be no reason that people evolve to become smarter than exactly as smart as they need to be to make babies happen. And sometimes that 95 IQ is more effective for this than 130.

What's interesting to me is that people who are not very smart usually seem at the very least socially competent, which is often people's best indication of intelligence. So when choosing a partner for intelligence most are using metrics that don't actually specify anything other than social intelligence. In a way it's a good thing, because social intelligence is important, but for this reason strong cognitive skill isn't being selected for.

 

[fromderinside]

So after you present all the[ usual suspects it's

...... So when choosing a partner for intelligence most are using metrics that don't actually specify anything other than social intelligence. In a way it's a good thing, because social intelligence is important, but for this reason strong cognitive skill isn't being selected for.

Still there is that ant hill of confirmed, repeatable, data that is helping mankind to make lots of new stuff that just keeps getting bigger and more reliable.

Do you think we need to talk to  Allstate laddies?

 

[Speakpigeon]

Yea I'd liken this to an ancient survival mechanism. If someone is severely incompetent and consequently believes themselves to be worthless, what's the motivation to continue seeking out partners and the like? The blind confidence will carry people through blunder after blunder without a need for self-awareness. Then, people who actually lack competence and self-confidence are selected out, because their lack of confidence in themselves becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and they're less likely to reproduce. Add it all up and you've got a population of confident people who aren't necessarily that intelligent.

But there's the thing, if we agree that evolution has no purpose, which it doesn't, then there should be no reason that people evolve to become smarter than exactly as smart as they need to be to make babies happen. And sometimes that 95 IQ is more effective for this than 130.

What's interesting to me is that people who are not very smart usually seem at the very least socially competent, which is often people's best indication of intelligence. So when choosing a partner for intelligence most are using metrics that don't actually specify anything other than social intelligence. In a way it's a good thing, because social intelligence is important, but for this reason strong cognitive skill isn't being selected for.

An interresting aspect you missed is that intelligent people may be selecting themselves out. Here is how it could go: Many intelligent people want to get as much social influence and power as they can, othen disregarding morality in the process. The result may be a confused realisation for most more ordinary people that "smart is bad", leading to smart people being ostracised by ordinary people and becoming isolated in a sort purposeless, amoral and self-destructing subculture.

Another way could be like this: Many smart people only want to reproduce with other smart people, for moral reasons or self-conceit perhaps. They may also insist more often on a proper family structure where their children could grow up "successfully", i.e. become like their parents, which sometimes i a mistake. Overall, marginally less children per family and less children outside wedlocks than the rest of the population.

Only social progress leading to better education would compensate the depletion due to these mechanisms.

You could also engineer a messy conflict in some clueless region of the wolrd to get upper-classes there to flee for safety to your own country. I think it would work.
EB

 

[fromderinside]

Yea I'd liken this to an ancient survival mechanism. If someone is severely incompetent and consequently believes themselves to be worthless, what's the motivation to continue seeking out partners and the like? The blind confidence will carry people through blunder after blunder without a need for self-awareness. Then, people who actually lack competence and self-confidence are selected out, because their lack of confidence in themselves becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and they're less likely to reproduce. Add it all up and you've got a population of confident people who aren't necessarily that intelligent.

But there's the thing, if we agree that evolution has no purpose, which it doesn't, then there should be no reason that people evolve to become smarter than exactly as smart as they need to be to make babies happen. And sometimes that 95 IQ is more effective for this than 130.

What's interesting to me is that people who are not very smart usually seem at the very least socially competent, which is often people's best indication of intelligence. So when choosing a partner for intelligence most are using metrics that don't actually specify anything other than social intelligence. In a way it's a good thing, because social intelligence is important, but for this reason strong cognitive skill isn't being selected for.

An interresting aspect you missed is that intelligent people may be selecting themselves out. Here is how it could go: Many intelligent people want to get as much social influence and power as they can, othen disregarding morality in the process. The result may be a confused realisation for most more ordinary people that "smart is bad", leading to smart people being ostracised by ordinary people and becoming isolated in a sort purposeless, amoral and self-destructing subculture.

Another way could be like this: Many smart people only want to reproduce with other smart people, for moral reasons or self-conceit perhaps. They may also insist more often on a proper family structure where their children could grow up "successfully", i.e. become like their parents, which sometimes i a mistake. Overall, marginally less children per family and less children outside wedlocks than the rest of the population.

Only social progress leading to better education would compensate the depletion due to these mechanisms.

You could also engineer a messy conflict in some clueless region of the world to get upper-classes there to flee for safety to your own country. I think it would work.
EB

Sounds a lot like Wynn-Edwards talking about Sage Grouse. If the outliers are never part of the reproductive regime what process do you suggest for including genes for their phenotype within that of the Sage Grouse genome.

 

[Speakpigeon]

An interresting aspect you missed is that intelligent people may be selecting themselves out. Here is how it could go: Many intelligent people want to get as much social influence and power as they can, othen disregarding morality in the process. The result may be a confused realisation for most more ordinary people that "smart is bad", leading to smart people being ostracised by ordinary people and becoming isolated in a sort purposeless, amoral and self-destructing subculture.

Another way could be like this: Many smart people only want to reproduce with other smart people, for moral reasons or self-conceit perhaps. They may also insist more often on a proper family structure where their children could grow up "successfully", i.e. become like their parents, which sometimes i a mistake. Overall, marginally less children per family and less children outside wedlocks than the rest of the population.

Sounds a lot like Wynn-Edwards talking about Sage Grouse. If the outliers are never part of the reproductive regime what process do you suggest for including genes for their phenotype within that of the Sage Grouse genome.

What sense of "many" do you have in mind?

None?

How exactly do you understand "less"?

Not exactly at all?

Or you may need prescription glasses.
EB

 

[fromderinside]

Sounds a lot like Wynn-Edwards talking about Sage Grouse. If the outliers are never part of the reproductive regime what process do you suggest for including genes for their phenotype within that of the Sage Grouse genome.

What sense of "many" do you have in mind?

None?

How exactly do you understand "less"?

Not exactly at all?

Or you may need prescription glasses.
EB

With population genetics less keeps become fewer over generations. Ultimately less equals fewer than one and its over. Yet, in grouse populations where candidate genes responsible for such phenotype disappear the outing of individuals to the perimeter as sacrifice or signals of pending threat continues. So much for group selection as a genetic mechanism. No. An elite from an outside group will be treated as outsider and killed.

My glasses are just right.

 

[rousseau]

So after you present all the[ usual suspects it's

...... So when choosing a partner for intelligence most are using metrics that don't actually specify anything other than social intelligence. In a way it's a good thing, because social intelligence is important, but for this reason strong cognitive skill isn't being selected for.

Still there is that ant hill of confirmed, repeatable, data that is helping mankind to make lots of new stuff that just keeps getting bigger and more reliable.

Do you think we need to talk to  Allstate laddies?

Ant-hill or petri-dish?

 

[Speakpigeon]

What sense of "many" do you have in mind?

None?

How exactly do you understand "less"?

Not exactly at all?

Or you may need prescription glasses.
EB

With population genetics less keeps become fewer over generations. Ultimately less equals fewer than one and its over.

Not if there is another mechanism which produces smart people, as I in fact already suggested: Only social progress leading to better education would compensate the depletion due to these mechanisms. Clearly, therefore, I wasn't considering that the ratio of smart people in the population was an entirely genetic mechanism as you insist on suggesting. I alluded to genetic causes (idiot at birth) but also to social mechanisms. You like simplification too much. The percentage of smart people would depend on the relative efficiency of various mechanisms in either depleting numbers or increasing them: Good education, better hygiene, medical progess, good governance, increased food supply, communication technologies, all may increase the ratio of smart people. Drug abuse, junk food, general lack of physical exercise, failed education systems, wars, dumb television, environmental pollution, all could increase the ratio of idiots.

Perhaps the larger point is that although possibly genetics trumps everything "social" nonetheless human societies are too complex to lend themselves to simplistic genetic theories and we would all die of old age before any realistic simulation of genetic effects on social life could produce an accurate result.

And of course Darwinian evolution is subject to changes in the environment. Mass extinction due to whatever for example.
EB

 

[Togo]

In a great deal of human reasoning it feels like there is a strong drive to reach a conclusion. I suspect the problem is not that people never reach the conclusion that they don't know, but rather that any chain of reasoning that leads to such a conclusion is of such low utility that there is little incentive to repeat it. Instead people favour reasoning that give them answers.

 

[fromderinside]

With population genetics less keeps become fewer over generations. Ultimately less equals fewer than one and its over.

And of course Darwinian evolution is subject to changes in the environment. Mass extinction due to whatever for example.
EB

Instead people favour reasoning that give them answers.

Complete picture.

 

[Speakpigeon]

In a great deal of human reasoning it feels like there is a strong drive to reach a conclusion. I suspect the problem is not that people never reach the conclusion that they don't know, but rather that any chain of reasoning that leads to such a conclusion is of such low utility that there is little incentive to repeat it. Instead people favour reasoning that give them answers.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean here.

Did you mean that "any chain of reasoning that leads to a conclusion that people don't know to be true is of such low utility that there is little incentive to repeat it"?

And then, possibly, "Instead people favour reasoning that leads to a conclusion they will know is true"?
EB

 

[fromderinside]

In a great deal of human reasoning it feels like there is a strong drive to reach a conclusion. I suspect the problem is not that people never reach the conclusion that they don't know, but rather that any chain of reasoning that leads to such a conclusion is of such low utility that there is little incentive to repeat it. Instead people favour reasoning that give them answers.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean here.

Did you mean that "any chain of reasoning that leads to a conclusion that people don't know to be true is of such low utility that there is little incentive to repeat it"?

And then, possibly, "Instead people favour reasoning that leads to a conclusion they will know is true"?
EB

That's putting 'truth' on trial isn't it. I mean if we can't know what is true and we can't reach a conclusion that we don't know to be true we are forced to compromise if we are to make a decision - I'll call it 'make progress' - if we are to increase understanding.

See the problem? We are increasing our understanding but we can't know truth.

Humans don't function under a truth regime in a known world.

Humans function under makes sense in a what we understand human world.

So rather than put truth on trial why don't we just operate with what we understand.