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The paper is about more intelligent people having higher accuracy judging other's intelligence. Nobody is claiming that intelligent people are completely infall

The paper is about more intelligent people having higher accuracy judging other's intelligence. Nobody is claiming that intelligent people are completely infallible, nobody is claiming that they're incapable of ever believing in incorrect things.

johnbarron 6mo ago
You say “the paper is about more intelligent people having higher accuracy judging others intelligence.” Lets talk about what the paper actually shows...since you all and the rest of this HN thread :-) are confidently defending a claim you apparently... have not even scrutinized...It says so much, that from the hundreds of comments mine is the only downvoted. The study is about 198 German psychology students watching 1-minute video clips... That is your entire evidentiary base for a sweeping claim about intelligence and judgment. The “valid cues” that drove accuracy were speech clarity and vocabulary...meaning the finding is essentially “people who are good at verbal processing noticed verbal cues.”. That is close to tautological, not some profound discovery about social perception. ;-) But here is the part you really missed. The original commenter I replied to was not making the paper narrow claim. They said intelligent people “can recognize which of my ideas are intelligent and which of my ideas are half-baked.” That is a much broader claim about intelligent people general judgment quality and exactly the kind of overreach my examples were dismantling. I was not arguing against the paper. I was arguing against the commenter extrapolation, which you are now also making by hiding behind the paper :-) as if it supports what was actually said. Now...even if we stay strictly within the paper own claims: Correlational design, no causal inference possible, tiny unrepresentative sample, restricted intelligence range, zero validity (a 1-min clip vs. actual human interaction), multiple predictors tested with no correction for multiple comparisons, and half the authors own hypotheses failed. The effect size could be trivially small for all the headline tells you. You are defending a study you probably read only as a headline, against criticisms you did not understand and were aimed at something else entirely. The irony of confidently misjudging what argument you are even responding to, in a thread about people ability to judge accurately, is not lost on me.
- SR2Z 6mo ago
  The methodology is about as sound as a sociology study ever gets - respectable n and in a domain where "only college students" is probably OK. The conclusion is pretty clear: intelligent people are better at discerning intelligence in others. The effect is weak but statistically significant. This result lines up with mine (and others) experience, which is that it is significantly harder to bullshit a smart person than a stupid person about your own intelligence. It's fair game to discuss anecdotes in the context of a study like this because human beings don't understand the world in CIs and z-scores, they understand it in narratives. > That is close to tautological, not some profound discovery about social perception. ;-) So is my statement above. It would have been a profound discovery if the study found out that intelligent people were no more accurate at judging others' intelligence than anyone else.
raxxorraxor 6mo ago
My experience is that smart people more often refrain from judgement of intelligence in others. Those that judge quickly, especially after a single statement that may have been stupendous or trivially illogical, almost certainly aren't the brightest stars in the night sky. That includes excentric people, perhaps not those that state something like that in an overly emotional state. But otherwise it is quite a good giveaway in my opinion. Especially if you ask them to elaborate their disagreement, the argument is often trite and one-dimensional.
- everdrive 6mo ago
  "I don't have enough information to render a judgement" is itself a judgement, and often a wise one. Some of the scariest folks think they really know a lot about a candidate after a job interview with some canned questions.

johnbarron 6mo ago

You say “the paper is about more intelligent people having higher accuracy judging others intelligence.” Lets talk about what the paper actually shows...since you all and the rest of this HN thread :-) are confidently defending a claim you apparently... have not even scrutinized...It says so much, that from the hundreds of comments mine is the only downvoted. The study is about 198 German psychology students watching 1-minute video clips... That is your entire evidentiary base for a sweeping claim about intelligence and judgment. The “valid cues” that drove accuracy were speech clarity and vocabulary...meaning the finding is essentially “people who are good at verbal processing noticed verbal cues.”. That is close to tautological, not some profound discovery about social perception. ;-) But here is the part you really missed. The original commenter I replied to was not making the paper narrow claim. They said intelligent people “can recognize which of my ideas are intelligent and which of my ideas are half-baked.” That is a much broader claim about intelligent people general judgment quality and exactly the kind of overreach my examples were dismantling. I was not arguing against the paper. I was arguing against the commenter extrapolation, which you are now also making by hiding behind the paper :-) as if it supports what was actually said. Now...even if we stay strictly within the paper own claims: Correlational design, no causal inference possible, tiny unrepresentative sample, restricted intelligence range, zero validity (a 1-min clip vs. actual human interaction), multiple predictors tested with no correction for multiple comparisons, and half the authors own hypotheses failed. The effect size could be trivially small for all the headline tells you. You are defending a study you probably read only as a headline, against criticisms you did not understand and were aimed at something else entirely. The irony of confidently misjudging what argument you are even responding to, in a thread about people ability to judge accurately, is not lost on me.

SR2Z 6mo ago
The methodology is about as sound as a sociology study ever gets - respectable n and in a domain where "only college students" is probably OK. The conclusion is pretty clear: intelligent people are better at discerning intelligence in others. The effect is weak but statistically significant. This result lines up with mine (and others) experience, which is that it is significantly harder to bullshit a smart person than a stupid person about your own intelligence. It's fair game to discuss anecdotes in the context of a study like this because human beings don't understand the world in CIs and z-scores, they understand it in narratives. > That is close to tautological, not some profound discovery about social perception. ;-) So is my statement above. It would have been a profound discovery if the study found out that intelligent people were no more accurate at judging others' intelligence than anyone else.

raxxorraxor 6mo ago

My experience is that smart people more often refrain from judgement of intelligence in others. Those that judge quickly, especially after a single statement that may have been stupendous or trivially illogical, almost certainly aren't the brightest stars in the night sky. That includes excentric people, perhaps not those that state something like that in an overly emotional state. But otherwise it is quite a good giveaway in my opinion. Especially if you ask them to elaborate their disagreement, the argument is often trite and one-dimensional.

everdrive 6mo ago
"I don't have enough information to render a judgement" is itself a judgement, and often a wise one. Some of the scariest folks think they really know a lot about a candidate after a job interview with some canned questions.