Why "Smart" People Are "Stupid"

[drwex]

Today's xkcd (http://xkcd.com/c242.html) is funny, but it also illustrates a truism: smart people are more likely than less-smart (in the IQ sense) to make the same mistake twice or even three times.

It's a combination of curiousity asking questions that normal people really don't care about (is that a random thing? is it repeatable?) with the arrogance of the smart (that couldn't possibly happen to me... again).

Contextually, this is part of the discussion about why conventional (IQ-like) measures of intelligence are outmoded or just flat-out wrong. It's part of the science of why intelligence and emotion are really inseparable (and thus why Meyers-Briggs is a load of horsepuckey) and makes me want to get back into reading that body of literature.

Comments

[gentlescholar.livejournal.com]

Depends what you mean by "mistake."

My conclusion, after years of thought about the nature of intelligence, is this:

Intelligence is not a thing. Intelligence is a topic.

It's like looking at two objects and saying one has more "electricity" than the other. If my students do that, I ask, "well, what do you mean? Do you mean more electric charge? A stronger electric field? A higher voltage? More potential energy? Greater flux? Which is greater depends on which thing you're talking about."

There's no such thing as "intelligence"--as in, "the ability to solve problems." There's ability to solve this problem or that problem.

Saying someone is "smarter" than someone else is actually the same mistake as saying that they are "better" than someone else, just to a lesser degree. The response should always be, "AT WHAT?"

[xthread.livejournal.com]

There's no such thing as "intelligence"--as in, "the ability to solve problems." There's ability to solve this problem or that problem.

I think that is a dangerously wrong way of thinking about both Intelligance and about Problem Solving.
Problem Solving, in the general case, is well and widely observed to be a trainable skill. Furthermore, 'Intelligence,' in the sense of 'capability to solve specific classes of problems,' is also well documented (by both educators and neuroscientists) to be a trainable skillset. And let me make sure that I'm being clear - not only are basic math skills teachable, for example, but through practice and education one can become more capable of thinking about math. The brain is, to use a perhaps very blunt analogy, as much a muscle as any other part of our body, and can be exercised and kept in shape or let to atrophy and wither away as much as any other set of musculature.

I suspect that what you want to rail against is the notion that Intelligence is Innate and Unchanging - that some people are Intelligent and others aren't, and there's nothing that you can do about it if you're one of them that isn't. But the response that you propose cements that construction - rather than pointing out that, for most people, and most cases, and certainly for most children, 'smarter' is something that can be learned, and can be intentionally taught.

[gentlescholar.livejournal.com]

That appears to have nothing to do with what I just said. You appear to have completely missed my point.

I am also fully aware of, and teach on a daily basis, the points you seem to be trying to make.