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Two of the most gullible, conspiracy-minded people I know have PHDs in tough fields. I don't think education is as related as you think.

by pubby 6y ago

yks 6y ago
Once I heard some gossip about the Triple Nine Society (99.9th IQ percentile). Apparently the members are mostly doomsday preppers and conspiracy believers. Obviously selection bias applies but I found that somewhat thought-provoking.
- pessimizer 6y ago
  I joined Mensa for a while and found it to be full of right-wing weirdos who are absolutely the audience for this stuff. The boardgaming was good, though.
  - giantg2 6y ago
    Interesting. Both the people I know who are a part of Mensa seemed very middle-of-the-road. One seemed to lean more left even. Perhaps it's influenced by location?
Izkata 6y ago
There was an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine that made the argument that high intelligence actually made it more likely, because they have more tools at their disposal to explain away discrepancies.
kofejnik 6y ago
I personally know a molecular biologist whose research is published in Nature (among other things) who believes in homeopathy But how, I ask? I don't know, but it works for me, she says
- giantg2 6y ago
  I guess it depends on what the condition and treatment is. Herbal cough drops to sooth a sore throat, sure. Vitamin C to cure cancer, not so much.
giantg2 6y ago
I'm advocating for logic classes and philosophy of argument classes at the primary and secondary education level. Even with this training, it wouldn't guarantee everyone would be more logical, but I would hope that more children are exposed to the formal teaching of logical arguments, fallacies, and potential self-scrutiny of their own arguments or objective (non-emotional) evaluation of others' arguments. I didn't recieve any formal logic education until college, but in was very interested in the subject. I think by exposing people to this subject, we could at least have some sort of positive impact on maybe 20% of the population - say the ability to identify strawman arguments or red herrings that I see quite often in the clickbait headlines of articles. Yes, education in general, such as the PhDs you mention, would not necessarily be helpful in this. The current education system tries to teach logic and argument implicitly through assignments dealing with other subjects. Unfortunately, I think this can lead to the inclusion of biases such as teachers being bias towards answers that agree with their own. For example, in third grade I said a bath is more water efficient than a shower because you could reuse the water in the tub for other purposes and you don't need to fill it as high as most people do. My answer was marked wrong because they were basing the answers off the stereotypical ideas of baths and showers.

Two of the most gullible, conspiracy-minded people I know have PHDs in tough fields. I don't think education is as related as you think.

by pubby 6y ago

Two of the most gullible, conspiracy-minded people I know have PHDs in tough fields. I don't think education is as related as you think.

yks 6y ago

Once I heard some gossip about the Triple Nine Society (99.9th IQ percentile). Apparently the members are mostly doomsday preppers and conspiracy believers. Obviously selection bias applies but I found that somewhat thought-provoking.

pessimizer 6y ago
I joined Mensa for a while and found it to be full of right-wing weirdos who are absolutely the audience for this stuff. The boardgaming was good, though.
- giantg2 6y ago
  Interesting. Both the people I know who are a part of Mensa seemed very middle-of-the-road. One seemed to lean more left even. Perhaps it's influenced by location?

Izkata 6y ago

There was an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine that made the argument that high intelligence actually made it more likely, because they have more tools at their disposal to explain away discrepancies.

kofejnik 6y ago

I personally know a molecular biologist whose research is published in Nature (among other things) who believes in homeopathy But how, I ask? I don't know, but it works for me, she says

giantg2 6y ago
I guess it depends on what the condition and treatment is. Herbal cough drops to sooth a sore throat, sure. Vitamin C to cure cancer, not so much.

giantg2 6y ago

I'm advocating for logic classes and philosophy of argument classes at the primary and secondary education level. Even with this training, it wouldn't guarantee everyone would be more logical, but I would hope that more children are exposed to the formal teaching of logical arguments, fallacies, and potential self-scrutiny of their own arguments or objective (non-emotional) evaluation of others' arguments. I didn't recieve any formal logic education until college, but in was very interested in the subject. I think by exposing people to this subject, we could at least have some sort of positive impact on maybe 20% of the population - say the ability to identify strawman arguments or red herrings that I see quite often in the clickbait headlines of articles. Yes, education in general, such as the PhDs you mention, would not necessarily be helpful in this. The current education system tries to teach logic and argument implicitly through assignments dealing with other subjects. Unfortunately, I think this can lead to the inclusion of biases such as teachers being bias towards answers that agree with their own. For example, in third grade I said a bath is more water efficient than a shower because you could reuse the water in the tub for other purposes and you don't need to fill it as high as most people do. My answer was marked wrong because they were basing the answers off the stereotypical ideas of baths and showers.