Tuesday, August 6, 2019

Too smart?

A Wall Street Journal review of a new book summarizes its findings that intelligence isn't enough:
.... 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. ....

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.” ....

The good news is that wisdom, unlike intelligence, can be taught, and these lessons bear real fruit. People with superior reasoning skills are more content and generally happier with their relationships. Yet in industrialized Western countries, where bravado is often mistaken for strength, a slower, humbler, more deliberative approach to decision-making tends to garner little respect. Our schools still prize innate abilities over other skills, and most students are encouraged to believe that speed (in answering questions and processing information) is an essential and even fateful sign of superiority. ....

What is fascinating is that IQ scores in industrialized countries have never been so high, rising the equivalent of 30 points in 80 years. Access to factual information has also never been so widespread. Yet we are no less susceptible to the allure of fake news and pseudoscience. We are as likely as ever to opportunistically prop up our own positions and take down those of our rivals. ....

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