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One big, directly related mistake, in my opinion is the strongly held idea that some people are geniuses, and that general intelligence is a thing. The more I
by stephc_int13 4y ago
One big, directly related mistake, in my opinion is the strongly held idea that some people are geniuses, and that general intelligence is a thing.
The more I look into it, the more I see that some people are experts, even genius-level experts, sometimes in several fields, but this level of expertise is a weak predictor of their competence in different fields.
A second big problem is that some people are experts at manipulating masses and at building hype, it can be dangerous because there is a strong compounding effect with hype. (Aka snowballing)
- laci37 4y agoEveryone is subject to the Dunning-Kruger effect. IMO intelligence is more about how quickly can you adapt to a new field. Everyone will have stupid moments if they are thrown in the deep waters of an unfamiliar field.
- stephc_int13 4y agoAgreed, to some extent. The idea that some people are genuinely extremely talented and could be successful at anything is, in my opinion, unproven and dubious. I think that human intellectual potential is highly adaptable, but we tend to ignore/undervalue the full path that led someone to excellence in a field. Also, we tend to rely a lot on weak heuristics to evaluate one's intellect. The strongest one (but still weak) is language abilities. The weakest and dangerous one is wealth/status.