Regarding Intelligence

[jay.tarnoff]

Brian,

I believe I understand the main points you are making within this episode, which I wholeheartedly agree with: even skeptics can be easily dismissive of individuals who do not agree with our points. Although not the main focus of your argument, I would like to address several specific points that you brought up within this podcast regarding stupidity, rationality, and insanity. I may be nitpicking, but I think it is important to differentiate these terms.

Firstly, I wanted to address the idea of “stupidity,” which is the primary premise on which this argument is based. Psychologically speaking, the term “stupid” is no longer operationally defined; that is, although used colloquially, it does not have any specific meaning when referring to cognitive capacity or behavior and is not used in psychological research. Terms such as dim and imbecile were used originally when diagnosing cognitive ability (early 20th Century), but have been replaced with more politically correct terms such as below average and well below average.

When dealing with cognition, the best current research deals with the Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) Theory of Intelligence, stating that there is an underlying general intelligence, g, broken down into broad abilities (fluid reasoning, crystallized intelligence, short-term memory, long-term storage and retrieval, visual processing, auditory processing, processing speed, and quantitative ability). These broad abilities are further broken down into narrow abilities, which is what cognitive assessments (IQ tests) are designed to measure. Current psychological research states that intelligence, or the specific abilities measured on cognitive assessments, does not predict rationality (as an example, Keith Stanovich’s book What Intelligence Tests Miss: The Psychology of Rational Thought). Intelligence is a necessary precursor for, but does not guarantee rationality. Actually, IQ does not even predict rationality in psychological tests of rational thinking. I think your title is correct, Sarah Palin is not unintelligent, but I would add that she may do many things that are irrational.

Secondly, at points, you conflate (or at least switch back and forth between) the term “stupid” and the term “nuts” (or the colloquial use of the legal term “insanity”), which can be broadly defined as one’s ability to determine right from wrong. I agree that many of the people you listed (e.g., Sarah Palin, Ben Stein, etc.) are not dealing with psychosis or “nuts,” but we should be instead talking about whether or not they are rational.

Finally, when dealing with rationality, it seems that you lean heavily towards the nurture aspects of the relative contributions of biology and the environment (e.g., “McVeigh is a guy who lived in a world of conspiracies”). I agree that one should not be dismissive of these individuals, (i.e., simply leaning on biological factors and calling them “crazy”), but I think it is still important to attempt to identify biological predispositions that these individuals may have that lean towards irrationality and keep these in mind when evaluating the rationality of their behaviors.

Thanks for keeping me thinking!

Skeptically yours,
Jay

[Hampster]

It has been shown that there is a correlation between political identity and fear, and Political party and ability to hear alternate points of view. There are several fundamental aptitudes that are stronger or weaker depending on how liberal or conservative you are.

I've worked with a lot of people with developmental disabilities, and I have no issues with a lack on intelligence. What really does bother me is Sarah Palin's (and other's) refusal to listen to any viewpoint but her own. Rather than go on a lengthly exposition of her failings, I often just call her stupid or crazy. I would never say that about the people I've worked with.

Sarah Palin and many others don't live in an evidence based world. She has mentioned the second amendment was in place to protect -her- from the press. I'm sure she has been corrected, but she still holds the same view. How do we apply this to her: stupid? crazy? other?

I understand that we all do things that make perfect sense in a certain frame of reference, and we should all try to understand each other's frame before applying labels. I think though, that when that frame is based upon a distorted reality, then we can apply the crazy or stupid label.

--Dave

[jay.tarnoff]

Dave,

Thank you for the comment. Regarding the stupid or crazy label, it is my opinion that applying these labels ends up providing a short-hand for dismissing the irrational acts. In a sense, “write her actions off because she is just crazy/stupid/etc” does not meaningfully provide any information to me about why a person behaves in a certain way.

I am not sure about your first point regarding political identity and fear/ability to hear alternative points of view. I think you are setting up the argument that “because political identity is correlated with fear / alternative points of view, Palin’s political affiliation leads her to be more fearful / less able to hear alternative points of view,” which is a confusion of correlation and causation. Please correct me if I am wrong on this point. I am not sure about the fundamental aptitudes (e.g., fear, etc?) to which you are referring, but I would not be surprised if certain psychological traits were associated with political identity.

Regarding the inability to understand others’ points of view, there is psychological research on what has been coined “epistemological level,” whereby the understood source of knowledge and the certainty of knowledge changes over time, specifically with developmental trends (Kuhn, Cheney, & Weinstock, 2001). Additionally, education is correlated with epistemological level, but again, this is only a correlation and does not guarantee a level of critical thinking upon reaching a certain educational level.

I think you reiterate my point and agree with Brian Dunning on the point that Sarah Palin is not stupid (at least within the psychological definition of intelligence). I also work with individuals with developmental disabilities and those with cognitive impairments, and am well versed in psychological assessments of intelligence. I think many would be shocked to find out that individuals like Palin and Bush would (probably) score well on a standardized cognitive assessment. Epistemologically, they tend to be more on the level of “Realists,” where assertions are copies of an external reality, where reality is directly knowable, knowledge comes from an external source and is certain, and critical thinking is unnecessary. But, it is for this reason that I wrote my initial post; we should not confuse these labels (e.g., crazy, stupid, nuts, etc), because they end up being a dismissive label without informing anyone on “why” the individual behaves in certain ways.

Jay