tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29137904.post6163330208695891755..comments2024-03-28T17:58:56.707+11:00Comments on The Social Pathologist: The Stanovich: Rationality and the Reflective Mind.The Social Pathologisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12927698533626086780noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29137904.post-85877151836791813862015-08-03T22:44:43.618+10:002015-08-03T22:44:43.618+10:00@Sanguine.
There tends to be a very strong HBD in...@Sanguine.<br /><br />There tends to be a very strong HBD influence in the Dark Enlightenment which has embraced IQ as the be all when it comes to the explanation of social phenomenon. Wades book, A Troublesome Inheritance, and the Wealth and IQ of nations being prime examples. <br /><br />I full understand that genetically modulated IQ is a real phenomenon but the HBD crowd lack the same perspective as the blank slaters. i.e claiming more than is warranted by the evidence.<br /><br />And I don't think that the position taken by some of our fellow bloggers is due to ignorance. I think that buried in the Dark Enlightenment is a strong Social Darwinist element.The Social Pathologisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12927698533626086780noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29137904.post-201884289799179422015-08-03T02:26:25.392+10:002015-08-03T02:26:25.392+10:00Emotional intelligence is not garbage either, it i...Emotional intelligence is not garbage either, it is merely executive functioning, arguably more important than either I.Q. or Reflective intelligence. Look at amazon under my reviews under rationality and you will see Russell Barkley's book, read that next.Sanguinehttp://midnightmodernity.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29137904.post-86569678180960653702015-08-03T02:24:33.613+10:002015-08-03T02:24:33.613+10:00I am on of the reviewers for Stanovich's book ...I am on of the reviewers for Stanovich's book under the name "Rationality", I fail to see exactly where it contradicts the views of the dark enlightenment, I have advocated supplementing the views of I.Q. and have gone on long tirades against the ghetto of I.Q. I do not see where we have advocated it to be the end all explanation. It's just our fellow bloggers tend to be under read if anything.Sanguinehttp://www.midnightmodernity.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29137904.post-78146080205948154122015-07-31T04:09:29.927+10:002015-07-31T04:09:29.927+10:00Thanks for your reply. I think you and I probably ...Thanks for your reply. I think you and I probably don't disagree much here, just in some of the details perhaps.<br /><br />It *is* a bit crazy to expect voters to have a rational view of complex items like economic policy.Benjamin I. Espenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16101998420660180372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29137904.post-38271520504960438692015-07-28T22:28:56.316+10:002015-07-28T22:28:56.316+10:00@Ben
I suppose I differ because I just can't ...@Ben<br /><br />I suppose I differ because I just can't see how thinking that comes to a wrong conclusion can be considered rational. I think it is vital that rationality and correctness are linked, otherwise sophistry assumes an air of reasonableness about it.<br />I think a far better way of defining man is that he is a creature capable of rational thought, a capacity he does not exercise regularly: He prefers the machine to do the thinking for him.<br /><br /><i>In fact our research only showed that humans are not well described by the rational-agent model.”</i><br /><br />And yet, so many of our social institutions are premised on the fact that humans <i>are</i>. This is where that danger lays. The idea of democracy is in many ways premised on the nation that the voter is rational. But suppose the voter is not--can a democratic civilisation work. I mean how do you formulate a rational economic policy when you don't understand the law of supply and demand. It's at this point that control theory comes into play. How do you adequately control or act when your conception of reality, or how to respond, is flawed? I think Stanovich is right, I don't think we fully appreciate just how damaging cognitive error is.<br /><br />Interestingly, Stanovich remarks that in nearly all of the psychological tests there is always someone who gets it right. Does this persons opinion have equal weighting as the others?<br /><br />What's interesting about most of the errors is that they tend to occur at the level of abstract reasoning or cognitive ambiguity. Heuristics seem quite well adapted for the concrete here and now but poorly adapted to abstract or conceptual issues. The implications of this are important especially in the theological and scientific domains.<br /><br />@Bob<br />I think Stanovich gives us a plausible mechanism for understanding how really high IQ people can be really stupid. By the way, what happened to the Labrador?The Social Pathologisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12927698533626086780noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29137904.post-30450163859955203512015-07-28T04:11:12.372+10:002015-07-28T04:11:12.372+10:00If anyone think high-IQ people are rational, just ...If anyone think high-IQ people are rational, just look at Paul Krugman.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16046202647270439670noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29137904.post-74559867116125046782015-07-28T02:14:45.659+10:002015-07-28T02:14:45.659+10:00SlateStarCodex had a post very similar to yours re...<a href="http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/07/23/the-general-factor-of-correctness" rel="nofollow">SlateStarCodex had a post very similar to yours recently.</a> The gist of the discussion there was trying to determine whether someone was right more often than not in a way that independent of intelligence per se.<br /><br />I admit that I'm not really a fan of trying to expand the definition of "rational" to include being correct. Aristotle's distinction is a valuable category that has interesting and important implications. I don't think being correct rises to quite the same level. It matters, and it matters a lot. What it isn't is something that follows with necessity. I'd rather just use the term "correct", which is what Scott Alexander did at SlateStarCodex. <br /><br />I suppose I'm also a little dubious because I think <a href="https://hbr.org/2015/05/from-economic-man-to-behavioral-economics" rel="nofollow">the supposed irrationality of human decision making has been oversold</a>. Which is pretty much the position of the researchers in that field:<br /><br />First-generation decision analysts such as Howard Raiffa and Ward Edwards recognized the flaws described by Kahneman and Tversky as real but thought the focus on them was misplaced and led to a fatalistic view of man as a “cognitive cripple.” Even some heuristics-and-biases researchers agreed. “The bias story is so captivating that it overwhelmed the heuristics story,” says Baruch Fischhoff, a former research assistant of Kahneman and Tversky who has long taught at Carnegie Mellon University. “I often cringe when my work with Amos is credited with demonstrating that human choices are irrational,” Kahneman himself wrote in Thinking, Fast and Slow. “In fact our research only showed that humans are not well described by the rational-agent model.”<br /><br />All of which is not to say this isn't something worth thinking about, but I have some disagreements about the state of the field.<br />Benjamin I. Espenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16101998420660180372noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29137904.post-26051324993921521312015-07-28T01:11:57.743+10:002015-07-28T01:11:57.743+10:00Fascinating stuff. Thank you for sharing.Fascinating stuff. Thank you for sharing.Maxhttp://mencius.xmas.ratry.ru/noreply@blogger.com