<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br>On Apr 14, 2015, at 8:30 AM, BillK <<a href="mailto:pharos@gmail.com">pharos@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></div><blockquote type="cite" style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><div><span>The BBC has an article up</span><br><span><<a href="http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150413-the-downsides-of-being-clever">http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150413-the-downsides-of-being-clever</a>></span><br><span></span><br><span>(The summary is that high IQ doesn't help much. It is a tool that can</span><br><span>be used for good or bad).</span><br><span></span><br><span>Quotes:</span><br><span>Over the course of their lives, levels of divorce, alcoholism and</span><br><span>suicide were about the same as the national average.</span><br><span>At best, a great intellect makes no differences to your life</span><br><span>satisfaction; at worst, it can actually mean you are less fulfilled.</span><br><span></span><br><span>The harsh truth, however, is that greater intelligence does not equate</span><br><span>to wiser decisions; in fact, in some cases it might make your choices</span><br><span>a little more foolish. Keith Stanovich at the University of Toronto</span><br><span>has spent the last decade building tests for rationality, and he has</span><br><span>found that fair, unbiased decision-making is largely independent of</span><br><span>IQ. Consider the "my-side bias" - our tendency to be highly selective</span><br><span>in the information we collect so that it reinforces our previous</span><br><span>attitudes. The more enlightened approach would be to leave your</span><br><span>assumptions at the door as you build your argument - but Stanovich</span><br><span>found that smarter people are almost no more likely to do so than</span><br><span>people with distinctly average IQs.</span><br><span></span><br><span>That's not all. People who ace standard cognitive tests are in fact</span><br><span>slightly more likely to have a "bias blind spot". That is, they are</span><br><span>less able to see their own flaws, even when though they are quite</span><br><span>capable of criticising the foibles of others. And they have a greater</span><br><span>tendency to fall for the "gambler's fallacy" - the idea that if a</span><br><span>tossed coin turns heads 10 times, it will be more likely to fall tails</span><br><span>on the 11th.</span><br><span></span><br><span>Indeed, Stanovich sees these biases in every strata of society. "There</span><br><span>is plenty of dysrationalia - people doing irrational things despite</span><br><span>more than adequate intelligence - in our world today," he says. "The</span><br><span>people pushing the anti-vaccination meme on parents and spreading</span><br><span>misinformation on websites are generally of more than average</span><br><span>intelligence and education." Clearly, clever people can be</span><br><span>dangerously, and foolishly, misguided.</span><br><span></span><br><span>So if intelligence doesn't lead to rational decisions and a better</span><br><span>life, what does? Igor Grossmann, at the University of Waterloo in</span><br><span>Canada, thinks we need to turn our minds to an age-old concept:</span><br><span>"wisdom".</span><br><span>--------------------------</span><br><span></span><br><span>BillK</span><br></div></blockquote><br><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">Seems to fit the old saw that the smarter you are, the better you be at rationalizing things, including your faults and prejudices.</div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">"So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do." -- Benjamin Franklin</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="line-height: 20px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.294118); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.231373); font-size: medium;"><br></span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><span style="line-height: 20px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.294118); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.231373); font-size: medium;">Regards,</span></div><div style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><div><div><font size="3"><span style="line-height: 20px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.294118); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.231373);"><br></span></font></div><div><div><font size="3"><span style="line-height: 20px; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(26, 26, 26, 0.294118); -webkit-composition-fill-color: rgba(175, 192, 227, 0.231373);">Dan</span></font></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: '.HelveticaNeueInterface-Regular'; font-size: 13pt;"> Sample my Kindle books via:</span></div><div><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Ust/e/B00J6HPX8M/" target="_blank" style="font-family: '.HelveticaNeueInterface-Regular'; font-size: 13pt;">http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Ust/e/B00J6HPX8M/</a></div></div></div><dl style="margin: 0px 0px 0px 1em; padding: 0px; border: 0px; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, 'Nimbus Sans L', Arial, 'Liberation Sans', sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.65; vertical-align: baseline; color: rgb(37, 37, 37); background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></dl></div></body></html>