Idiot Brain Read Online Free PDF Page A

predict or understand. This means the brain cannot work out whether they present a danger or not, and in this situation the old “better safe than sorry” instinct is activated, triggering suspicion and hostility. It’s true that a person could also learn and study to become more intelligent as well, but this is far more complex and uncertain than physical improvement. Lifting weights gives you strong arms, but the connection between learning and intelligence is far more diffuse.
    The phenomenon of less-intelligent people being more confident has an actual scientific name: the Dunning–Kruger effect. It is named for David Dunning and Justin Kruger of Cornell University, the researchers who first looked into the phenomenon, inspired by reports of a criminal who held up banks after covering his face with lemon juice, because lemon juice can be used as invisible ink, so he thought his face wouldn’t show up on camera. 5
    Just let that sink in for a moment.
    Dunning and Kruger got subjects to complete a number of tests, but also asked them to estimate how well they thought they had done on the tests. This produced a remarkable pattern: those who performed badly on the tests almost always assumed they’ddone much much better, whereas those who did well invariably assumed they’d done worse. Dunning and Kruger argued that those with poor intelligence not only lack the intellectual abilities, they also lack the ability to recognize that they are bad at something . The brain’s egocentric tendencies kick in again, suppressing things that might lead to a negative opinion of oneself. But also, recognizing your own limitations and the superior abilities of others is something that itself requires intelligence. Hence you get people passionately arguing with others about subjects they have no direct experience of, even if the other person has studied the subject all their life. Our brain has only our own experiences to go from, and our baseline assumptions are that everyone is like us. So if we’re an idiot . . .
    The argument is that an unintelligent person actually cannot “perceive” what it is to be considerably more intelligent. It’s basically like asking a color-blind person to describe a red and green pattern.
    It may be that an “intelligent” has a similar take on the world, but expressed in different ways. If an intelligent person thinks something was easy then they may assume everyone else finds it easy too. They assume their level of competence is the norm, so they assume their intelligence is the norm (and intelligent people tend to find themselves in jobs and social situations where they’re surrounded by other similar types, so they are likely to have a lot of evidence to support this).
    But if intelligent people are generally used to learning new things and acquiring new information, they’re more likely to be aware that they don’t know everything and how much there is to know about any given subject, which would undercut confidence when making claims and statements.
    For example, in science, you (ideally) have to be painstakingly thorough with your data and research before making any claims as to how something works. A consequence of surrounding yourself with similarly intelligent people means if you do make a mistake or a grandiose claim, they’re more likely to spot it and call you on it. A logical consequence of this would be a keen awareness of the things you don’t know or aren’t sure about, which is often a handicap in a debate or an argument.
    These occurrences are common enough to be familiar and problematic, but obviously aren’t absolute; not every intelligent person is racked with doubt, and not every less-intelligent person is a self-aggrandizing buffoon. There are plenty of intellectuals who are so in love with the sound of their own voice that they genuinely charge people thousands to hear it, and there are ample