From The Wall Street Journal:
Every year brings more books about how stupid we are. Apparently humans are impulsive, gullible and prone to making all sorts of bad decisions. We are also fascinated by our shortcomings, if the shelves at airport bookstores are anything to go by. The latest contribution to the pile is from David Robson, a London-based science journalist, who offers an intriguing angle on our flawed habits of mind. In “The Intelligence Trap,” he argues not only that we are walking, talking, error-making machines, but also that the cleverest among us may make the biggest mistakes.
Anyone who has spent time on a college campus has probably intuited that innate intelligence and common sense don’t necessarily go hand in hand. But Mr. Robson bolsters his case with a raft of studies that show all the ways in which a fine mind can trip up. People with high SAT scores, for example, are less likely to either take advice or learn from their blunders. Folks with multiple degrees and professional expertise are often blind to their own biases. The consequences of these gaffes are often merely personal and embarrassing, but sometimes they are catastrophic. In American hospitals, one in 10 patient deaths appear to be the result of diagnostic mistakes.
To help distinguish between smarts and wisdom, Mr. Robson offers the analogy of a car. A fast engine can get you around quickly, but horsepower alone doesn’t guarantee you’ll arrive at your destination safely. Without a proper understanding of the rules of the road, a speedy driver is, in fact, a menace. Philosophers have perceived the shortcomings of sharp minds for millennia, but the pursuit of “evidence-based wisdom” really gained steam after the financial crash of 2008, when nearly everyone suffered from the costly mistakes of “experts.” New institutions such as Chicago’s Center for Practical Wisdom now apply scientific techniques, including randomized control trials, to explore and understand human reason. “The study of wisdom now seems to have reached a kind of tipping point,” Mr. Robson tells us.
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Beliefs often arise from emotional needs, which we intellectually rationalize post hoc. Clever people are as prone to irrationality as everyone else—a phenomenon called “dysrationalia”—yet they are often even more skilled at justifying their superstitions. College graduates are more likely than those with less education to believe in extrasensory perception and “psychic healing.” High-IQ types are just as likely to have financial problems, even though they often have better jobs with higher salaries. Because many “brainiacs” expect to outsmart others, they are often more heedless of risks and less aware of their own flaws in thinking. As the 19th-century psychologist William James once said, “a great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.”
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The good news is that wisdom, unlike intelligence, can be taught, and these lessons bear real fruit.
Link to the rest at The Wall Street Journal (Sorry if you encounter a paywall)
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Making mistakes is how we learn. Well, some of us. But not all. 🙂
“If ya ain’t makin’ mistakes ya ain’t learnin’ nothin’ new.”
Making mistakes is a good way to learn. An even better way is to watch other people make mistakes, and then examine the bodies.
Ah, but if you’re waiting for someone else to make the mistake then you aren’t the first one doing/trying it. 😉
Well, the early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
College graduates are more likely than those with less education to believe in extrasensory perception and “psychic healing.”
Colleges used to attempt to teach their students to think logically. I guess that’s what this author is calling ‘wisdom.’ As a physicist, I find it irritating when people have picked up the jargon of the sciences without the slightest understanding of what it actually means – and apply it to their ‘vibrations.’
As for changes, I can point to a great number of them I’ve made in my own thinking by challenging even the gentle prejudices I was reared with – never was one to let ‘authority’ be the final word on something. Maybe the Benedictines and the Jesuits were successful in making me examine my biases – and my conscience.
I keep asking people what exactly is vibrating. I hear lots about raising their frequency. Frequency of what, I ask. Silence.
I did get one answer. She told me she was raising her hertz. I let her go in peace.
People seem to think I can be a physicist or a novelist – but not both.
They want to put you into closed boxes, and I will have to insist on being Schrödinger’s cat.
I don’t think even they know what they’re talking about; precision is not one of their charisms. You’re supposed to understand their gobbledygook unexplained.
Given the general lack of science knowledge, you are kind to let her go in peace.
This is, after all, the new world, where their opinion counts as much as (or more than) your knowledge tested by experiment.
I like my way better – everything is so much more interesting once you understand the science behind it.