The Intelligence Trap: Why Clever People Can Still Be Stupid.

David Robson, award winning science writer, shares findings from his best selling book, The Intelligence Trap, and explains why we often see extremely intelligent people make extremely stupid mistakes.
Watch the full episode here - • David Robson | Transfo...

[@GoodCovfefe]

I all question our beliefs, except the things we truly believe and those we dont even think to question.

[@astrladam4392]

I’ve been searching for the final authority on intelligence! Thank you God I’ve found you!

[@thy.rant.bruteforce]

hahaha so true

[@monkerud2108]

Logic doesn't really exist as most people seem to think it does based on common sense, when Sherlock holmes comes up with these fantastical deductive chains, it is in principle just a guess about causality, that seems very detailed and plausible. It builds up a coherent story we can buy into after the fact, but what if you can have 10 totally different similar stories for any one chain of events? Well then you have to go and look over and over until the plausibility falls apart for some of the stories, but you are never garuanteed that what is left over is true, maybe we just lacked to information or imagination to see the real causation in the circumstance. There is no logical indication in science that could work, and verified to work just from the structure of arguments, otherwise why are we doing all these silly experiments and studies. I don't think people realise that this applies to even the most basic and common sense "deductive" arguments we can make. They are only deductive within a formal system of rules that might apply or not apply to whatever we are asking.

[@lynnoettl5996]

I advise watchers to do their own homework on Kerry Mullins. Consensus means nothing in science. Any good science journalist knows better.

[@calfinbro]

I was going to observe the same thing. The possibility of having different ideas than the "consensus" does not at all imply that your ideas are wrong. In fact, the notable geniuses of history are those who had non-consensus views.

[@monkerud2108]

What you say is nice, i think its pretty much on the money, but this more realistic view of what we dp when we reason about difficult scientific problems, feeds much better into where these cognitive biases come from, and especially these anchoring effects. You can look at an argument for example about hiv or psycology and you end up with a view that might be fully justified that whatever is being presented as logic really isn't, and then that males it much easier to ignore the plausibility arguments in favor of what ever view you landed on opposing.

[@monkerud2108]

The rational thing is ti view all first principles arguments as flawed and not really as deterministic logic about whatever application, whethr the argument came from yourself or others, and look at the plausibility given the evidence.

[@monkerud2108]

This applies to everything in science not just wrong conclusions, based on evidence. People tend to think that when we have established the plausibility of an argument or model to a high degree that sort of absolves the theoretical reasoning associated with it from logical error in a sense, we know the principle of relativity is correct, because we corroborated the theory resulting from one application of it to a high degree, but that is just nonsense, logic is nowhere to be found there to establish that bridge, you never get to a point where there is a math proof within a formal system connecting the principle to nature in a fundamental way, because we don't have and cannot establish a formal system of rules of reasoning that includes nature as a whole, we only have guesses at formalisation and a black box called nature that always does what the real nature of nature does given the way we try to set things up, and our interpretation should always be that we have established some weak duality between our formalisation and the nature of nature, not that we have found a principle that always holds true in the black box of experiments, we only ever know about the part of the causation in our experiments that 1 look like formal objects we understand on the theoretical side, and 2 that give results we don't expect based on those prejudices, and everything we simply don't know how to spot are simply variables of the real nature of nature we are oblivious to, but that still males an apperance in every single experiment we do, it might even be necessary to make the results come out more or less like we expected in our theoretical guesses.

[@hud86]

The most unintelligent and incapable people I’ve met were always highly “educated” with degrees. They also came from wealthy backgrounds, funny how that works.

[@thy.rant.bruteforce]

The issue is that science usually only accepts their own version of truth as true. They figure something out and then shape this box that feels safe. But if you think about it 100 years ago people would called you an absolute madman if you said things that we consider as true today. Intelligence requires to get out of that box and invent something new. All of great thinkers like Einstein and Tesla would shape ideas in their mind and bring them to existence, but almost everything they did was against of what the consensus of the time was. Modern scientists are all stuck in this box of things that have been invented by others. All of them have papers that say they are eligble to be one but is rare to see one inventing something new and nowadays it seems more as a cover for the system to withstand scrutiny of its citizens than actually do something useful

[@masonwells3219]

You seem to be very educated, but intelligence does not correlate with education.

[@thy.rant.bruteforce]

What he says makes sense if you look at it from a empirically proven materialist point of view. But if you take a topic like quantum physics where the observed object can be different based on who is observing it, you can quickly come to the conclusion there is more than a simple materialist view. There is a greater intelligence operating it that is not even comprehendible by our human mind. That's why people like him don't do more research on it because they cannot throw their logic at it. This is where it ends for science and there are more answers to be found in old Indian scriptures than the system will ever give you about this topic. But they purposefully don't share this type of stuff, because it would allow you to grow outside of the box that they are trying to keep you in. I really expected something good when i clicked on this vid but it was just another scientist rambling on about how anything outside of their consensus is false. Lacks authenticity. I have had quite a journey through this life myself and i was once on the side of this person speaking too, but the system is just wrong in many ways and he sounds more like a spokesperson for the system who has been indoctrinated like many of the scientists have. They will not take a different point of view because they are in firm believe that the system supports them, but it only supports the illusion that the system wants to be seen as real and they are helping the cause. i use the word system as an umbrella term here, but i think you understand what i mean. I could write a whole essay on things, but i'd really rather talk with those people and not bash them in the comments. He is probably better educated on a lot of topics than i am. i'd rather help a brother out than call him blatantly stupid though... There are many planes to our reality and if yours is a purely materialistic empirical one.. idk man.. quantum physics... might just be willfully ignorant at the point.. There are things he talks about like deduction, but majorly he just dismisses things because his association with something within the current consensus is that it is false. he might be right on some things, but i think he is dangerously close to becoming what he despises. Something along the lines of "how do you beat the monster without becoming one".

[@scottparkhurst5928]

Did he say that the German term was "Fing Idiot"??

[@monkerud2108]

You make a mistake there, we have done no such thing as logical deduction to find out about the connection between HIV and Aids, we have done empirical stuff like collecting data and establishing a plausible deduction that the results show that there is a link there. And that might be very well established, but it isn't pure logic, there really isn't such a thing when it comes to nature. The pretense that deterministic logic is involved comes in with hindsight, when we develop treatments based on our deductive arguments around that empirical induction, neither of which can be established objectively or with 100% garuantees against errors. The mistake people like the pcr guy make is to take this realization that the logic isn't really like the common sense perception of what logic is at all waaay too far, and they start denying it based on other invented logics that they come up with, but doesn't have tge same level of plausibility based on empirical "induction". You have to view it more or less like that, because i think that is what is happening in their brains, it starts with a real insight that a lot of people take the logic we approximate in science too seriously and rigidly after the fact, and they run away with it. And this can be done at any Level of absurdity, from conspiracy theories about the earth being flat, to legitimate objections to reasoning employed in science, like the view that washing hands didn't matter in surgery, because disease was transmitted through the air ofc in all cases, as some believed back in the day as doctors. It is harder and harder to find not so subtle mistakes like that in reasoning that is adjoined to empirically motivated science, as our knowledge becomes more and more certain or rather detailed. But the notion of category errors in philosophical assumptions in the "logic" we do on the theoretical side of describing nature, cannot be eliminated by any procedure, and smart people are aware of that, it is just a matter of plausibility and counter example, but innthe end you also have ti test a conceivable counterexample to the same degree of plausibility as whatever you have theoretical doubts about, to really say whether ot is a relevant concern, and being lazy at that part is much easier for a smart person than being lazy in criticing work you think makes these mistakes. Its a terrible trap, especially of younare clever, because if you are not that self aware about it, you set way lower standards for your own objections than whatever you critize.