Think you're smart? New research shows that smart people are dumber than stupid people. Wait,what?

You heard it, if you are one of those folks who considers yourelf to be smart, current research shows that you are actually dumber than oll of those stupid people out there that you like to make fun of all the time.

How you like them apples, smartypants?

Who are we to question the wisdom of the men in the white lab coats?

Why Smart People Are Stupid


Here’s a simple arithmetic question: A bat and ball cost a dollar and ten cents. The bat costs a dollar more than the ball. How much does the ball cost?

The vast majority of people respond quickly and confidently, insisting the ball costs ten cents. This answer is both obvious and wrong. (The correct answer is five cents for the ball and a dollar and five cents for the bat.)


When people face an uncertain situation, they don’t carefully evaluate the information or look up relevant statistics. Instead, their decisions depend on a long list of mental shortcuts, which often lead them to make foolish decisions. These shortcuts aren’t a faster way of doing the math; they’re a way of skipping the math altogether. Asked about the bat and the ball, we forget our arithmetic lessons and instead default to the answer that requires the least mental effort.

The New Yorker

So, what they are saying is that smart people tend to create shortcuts to get things done that make assumptions that aren't always based on facts and real world probabilities. To make matters worse; we can spot these weaknesses in others but, can't see them in ourselves when we are the ones who are making the false assumptions.

Perhaps our most dangerous bias is that we naturally assume that everyone else is more susceptible to thinking errors, a tendency known as the “bias blind spot.” This “meta-bias” is rooted in our ability to spot systematic mistakes in the decisions of others—we excel at noticing the flaws of friends—and inability to spot those same mistakes in ourselves. Although the bias blind spot itself isn’t a new concept, West’s latest paper demonstrates that it applies to every single bias under consideration, from anchoring to so-called “framing effects.” In each instance, we readily forgive our own minds but look harshly upon the minds of other people.

And here’s the upsetting punch line: intelligence seems to make things worse. The scientists gave the students four measures of “cognitive sophistication.” As they report in the paper, all four of the measures showed positive correlations, “indicating that more cognitively sophisticated participants showed larger bias blind spots.” This trend held for many of the specific biases, indicating that smarter people (at least as measured by S.A.T. scores) and those more likely to engage in deliberation were slightly more vulnerable to common mental mistakes. Education also isn’t a savior; as Kahneman and Shane Frederick first noted many years ago, more than fifty per cent of students at Harvard, Princeton, and M.I.T. gave the incorrect answer to the bat-and-ball question.

You can find the abtract of the study here.


So how smart do you think you are now?

We have a bunch of Ivy league MBS's running our country.

Proof enough for me.

I am only as smart as the questions I ask. I want to add that I don't think its intelligence so much as ego and arrogance that stops some people from asking questions and taking advice from others. A closed mind seems to think it knows best.

reply to post by FortAnthem


Seems about right, although I wouldn't say smart people are dumber than stupid people.

So, what they are saying is that smart people tend to create shortcuts to get things done that make assumptions that aren't always based on facts and real world probabilities.

You could go so far as to say all "knowledge" is based on assumptions rather than facts. Math, science, and language itself is built on assumptions and presuppositions.

Cool articles thanks for sharing.

I think i understand what they are saying and their choice of words makes it sound backwards.

Im smart but i always have stupid people telling me im stupid.these stupid people think they are smart.

See what i mean?

reply to post by FortAnthem


Interesting that this has been stated before.

"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye. (Matthew 7:3-5 NIV)

You can't deny the similarities between these doctors' findings, and what was said a long time ago.

It does seem that human behavior is evolving/devolving away from a loving, natural, mammalian state (peak of life?) to an age of individualism, coldness and manipulation.

Are we headed back to the reptilian brain, or simply imploding?

Originally posted by phroziac
I think i understand what they are saying and their choice of words makes it sound backwards.

Im smart but i always have stupid people telling me im stupid.these stupid people think they are smart.

See what i mean?

I'm sure you're being somewhat sarcastic, otherwise, that is exactly the conundrum exposed by the study.

You think you are "smart" and they are "stupid" because the frame of reference is your own brain, and vice versa.

It all boils down to the analysis of sense perception organ information. Your brain analysis is slightly different than everybody else, and therefore your frame of reference is slightly different than everybody else. (sometimes very different!)

You can argue with someone that blue is blue till your red in the face, but if they are seeing yellow, they will never agree with you. Thus, they are stupid to you because they can't see blue, and you are stupid to them because you can't see yellow.

The truly smart person, in my humble opinion, is the one who understands this reality.

It is interesting to note that (IN GENERAL!) the older humans get, and the less physically malleable our brains become the more "hard headed" we tend to be. (literally... I guess!)

the Billmeister

Originally posted by FortAnthem


So how smart do you think you are now?

Much smarter then the guys doing the study because I got the question right and am also quite smart... as well as a smart-alek when I need to be

so basically... a couple of guys that are lower than average for the field they're in got upset that other people were smarter than they are, so they made up a study and asserted an argument with logical fallicies to try to lift their egos and say they are smarter than the others when in actuality, they're not... and now the truely stupid people will jump on it because it boosts their ego and will become even more stupid yet claim they are smart.... great... like we didn't have enough of those aleady

Why do some companies look for the B student? Because they know that the B student had to think and work.

So for example someone can read for content but never note the spelling mistakes. The brain's tendency to "fill in" details can be very useful, but also misleading. The person who carefully checks over details is less likely to succumb to a scotoma, but might miss the implications of the over all context.

reply to post by FortAnthem


Smart and stupid are all relative.

I'm "smart" because I have tested well on IQ tests. I'm "stupid" because I can't figure a lot of basic stuff out, I am super bad at math, and don't understand why everyone likes money and material possessions. I'm "smart" because I know what to do in tough situations, know how to take care of other people, know how to survive. I'm "stupid" because I don't care about fashion or fanciness or politics or status or notoriety.

Who cares? All this study showed is that they figured out how to make people argue about how smart or not smart everyone else is by playing with everyone's egos.

We're all suckers, end of story.

reply to post by FortAnthem


so called smart people have studied at uni and so on but have no nous it does not mean that they are stupid , it just goes to show that they have a blinkered view on every day life .

the problem we have here is that the world is getting to specialised , we have people that can complete the times crossword in five minutes but do not know how to wire a cable to a plug or even call in a plumber because their radiators need bleeding .

reply to post by FortAnthem


It took me forever trying to figure out why the ball wasn't $0.10... by that rationale, I must be a freakin' genius!

I'm in it for the label, anyway.

I still looking for the part where it says Smart people are DUMBER than stupid people. All i saw was that its easy to look over simple problem when you do short cuts.

I wonder who thought of the question?... must be stupid people! right?

reply to post by FortAnthem


Great article.

This is a definition of a pseudoskeptic. Most hardline skeptics have huge blind spots because they think they already know. I think most people in my area of study, Theoretical Physics, tend to be more open minded because all we do is think outside the box.

It always amazes me when you debate people who think they know everything

Originally posted by luciddream
I still looking for the part where it says Smart people are DUMBER than stupid people. All i saw was that its easy to look over simple problem when you do short cuts.

Its right here (In big smart people words )

And here’s the upsetting punch line: intelligence seems to make things worse. The scientists gave the students four measures of “cognitive sophistication.” As they report in the paper, all four of the measures showed positive correlations, “indicating that more cognitively sophisticated participants showed larger bias blind spots.”

It says that smart people tend to perferm even more poorly on these tests than everyone else. It even goes on to say that people with the big Ivy League educations don't do any better either showing that anyone willing to shell out that much for a college education MUST be stupid.

I wonder who thought of the question?... must be stupid people! right?

More than likely in my estimation.

According to the modern wonder of standardized testing I'm supposed to be very smart.

I find myself skipping steps all the time just like in the "bat and ball" example above.

Especially when it is a question concerning something I have decided to be irrelevant.

At work this always drives people nuts. Most of my coworkers and underlings absolutely freak out about irrelevant issues day in and day out while they ignore the truly relevant issues.

One thing may be a simple statistic that in no way interferes with the running of this operation and the building will explode in drama as they hunt for who to blame and layer meetings upon committees to make certain it never happens again.

Another could very well send half of us into the street and the other half to prison but nobody pays it any attention whatsoever.

I find a lot of groups and bureaucracies behave this way. State inspections passing worn brakes but failing a cracked tail light cover for example. Cops looking the other way as an obvious drunk drives home but fining you $100 for rolling a stop sign.

A proper example from fiction that occurs in the real world everyday is Office Space and the TPS report.

In school it was mathematical proofs.

Its how so many can ignore their impoverished state yet reflect proudly on some high school sporting accomplishment.

It's okay to be a raging drunk in a dilapidated double-wide bagging groceries because 30 years ago you scored four touchdowns at state.

A bat and ball costing $1.10? I dont care. I cant care. Now a city block and 2,000 employees? I'll care a bunch.

reply to post by thisguyrighthere


A bat and ball costing $1.10? I dont care. I cant care. Now a city block and 2,000 employees? I'll care a bunch.

^ This is the correct answer ^

Too many self-proclaimed geniuses dreaming up trick quesions to boost their egos and not enough common sense "how the world really works" thinkers.

Originally posted by neoholographic
reply to post by FortAnthem

 

Great article.

This is a definition of a pseudoskeptic. Most hardline skeptics have huge blind spots because they think they already know. I think most people in my area of study, Theoretical Physics, tend to be more open minded because all we do is think outside the box.

It always amazes me when you debate people who think they know everything

That seems to be an excellent summation of it.

It has occured to me at times that those who are unfamiliar with physics (perhaps even abhor it due to not understanding) are often the most adamant in their pseudoskepticism. They wish to think of themselves as intelligent but don't wish to put the effort into actually being intelligent, hence, things of this nature are discussed in other academic areas to try to comprehend instead of just gaining an understanding of what it is that intimidates them.

reply to post by FortAnthem


u r pervert in what u mean, meaning that intelligents are dumber then stupid is confirming stupidity and killing intelligence truth