Discussion Crazy video about smart peoples' thinking abilities

[igor_kavinski]

For the first few minutes, you gonna wonder why this is in the Politics forum.

Your patience will be REWARDED with insanely unbelievable experimental results!

 

[Paratus]

For the first few minutes, you gonna wonder why this is in the Politics forum.

Your patience will be REWARDED with insanely unbelievable experimental results!

I considered posting this too. It does show how folks can use their intelligence (numeracy in this case) to justify biased beliefs rather than accurately interpret data.

I’ve noticed this too. Very intelligent people can use their intellect to justify their unsupported and erroneous beliefs. Especially political beliefs.

 

[Muse]

Was reading up on genius, precocity, savants, etc. yesterday.

A common skill of savants is calendar skills. Although a certain known pair of twins had IQ 40-50 and couldn't count to 20, ask one what day of the week is a random date, say 50000 years in the future and they have the answer!

A discussion of this in detail:

Do calendrical savants use calculation to answer date questions? A functional magnetic resonance imaging study - PMC

Calendrical savants can name the weekdays for dates from different years with remarkable speed and accuracy. Whether calculation rather than just memory is involved is disputed. Grounds for doubting whether they can calculate are reviewed and ...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

 

[IronWing]

I considered posting this too. It does show how folks can use their intelligence (numeracy in this case) to justify biased beliefs rather than accurately interpret data.

I’ve noticed this too. Very intelligent people can use their intellect to justify their unsupported and erroneous beliefs. Especially political beliefs.

This is why scientists go to extraordinary lengths to keep from feeding themselves bullshit. We all have our pet theories.

 

[dainthomas]

I think this is fairly common in lots of people who excel in very specific areas. They think this extrapolates to vastly different fields of expertise and makes them experts in those areas also.