Sunday, 13 February 2022
Professors who can barely dress themselves
Andrew Hunt has an entertaining piece in The Critic about Those Who Know Better talking down to the rest of us while making a pig's ear of things.
Too stupid for the truth
Lying to the public “for their own good” spells the end of democracy.
In 2015 Nick Clegg was asked why there should not be a Brexit vote. His answer was the EU was too complicated and too important for the public to possibly understand. The best thing we could all do was leave our fate to the experts.
This idea has become more pervasive ever since, whether it’s made up Covid stats to scare us into compliance, or the haughty disdain for “populism”. The public are just too stupid — a dim-witted liability that must be managed for our own good.
Where did this narrative come from?
Well worth reading the whole thing. For example this must strike a chord with many of us -
After the Brexit vote, it became fashionable to show charts of the IQs of remainers versus leavers. What makes anyone think IQ is a useful test of decision-making ability? The reason IQ tests fell out of favour is that they proved so useless at selecting people. Anyone who went to university will remember professors who could barely dress themselves, let alone hold down a relationship or bring up a family. Should they be running the country?
High IQs are not just impractical, they can be dangerous. Intelligence often means overconfidence. Since the 1980s the finance industry has continuously upskilled. Roles that were once done by East London wide boys with a good head for figures now require a PhD. The result has been increasingly complex models devoid of all commonsense. The Big Short famously depicted how these daft algorithms handed out 120 per cent mortgages to lap-dancers with no savings, ultimately bringing down the entire US economy. There is a reason classic books on financial failures have titles like “The Smartest Guys In The Room” and “When Genius Failed”.
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11 comments:
I read the original article in the Critic and broadly agreed with it. The question in my mind was whether a higher IQ is a correlation or a causation of success.
Turn the arrow of causation through 90 degrees. If the primary cause of being or becoming 'elite' is being from elite parents, it could be that a higher IQ is merely an artefact of dividing society into classes. Yes, on average, the elite might have higher IQs, but this could be the outcome of assortative mating (see Wikipedia) and increased educational/environmental opportunities.
I've known really clever lower class people and stunningly dim upper class people, although they are rarities for their class. In my opinion the fuss over Brexit and democracy is mainly a class war, not an IQ war.
What society selects for nowadays is not intelligence, its intellectualism. Intelligence requires intellectualism ,but intellectualism is but one facet of intelligence. Thus an intellectual is someone who can translate ancient Greek or run off an essay on the significance of Beowulf, but would have no clue how to change a tyre on their car. An intelligent person should be able to turn their hand to most things, practical and intellectual, by application of their intelligence. If they fail massively in one area then they aren't truly intelligent.
Which is why IMO school should include practical subjects for all. We force those who are good at practical stuff to do the intellectual, yet we don't force the intellectual to do the practical. The intellectual then get the idea they are 'better' than the practical, and are more intelligent, because they can pass all the exams, which test for intellectualism. The failure of the intellectual to master practical matters should preclude them from high position as much as the failure of the practical to master intellectual matters precludes them.
Excellent find. Makes a sound case as well as being witty and readable. I hadn't connected those two obvious points before: the contempt for ordinary people's decision-making capacities, and the "Partygate" events. Obviously, our elite are convinced that they know better, and these are two different manifestations of that.
On a more local level, in my bitter experience anyone who has "manager" attached to their job title immediately becomes an expert in everyone's field even if they have trouble tying their laces in the morning.
"The reason IQ tests fell out of favour is that they proved so useless at selecting people." On the contrary they fell out of favour because they proved so useful. Socialists objected to their plucking out intelligent children from poor families and identifying them as suitable for an academic education.
Some large outfits still use them though they often attempt to disguise that they are IQ tests. The US armed forces are a good example. Their experiment with sending low IQ infantry to Vietnam was calamitous. Google "McNamara's Morons" and then reflect how much better it would have been if the intelligent McNamara had applied his brain to the question of why his predecessors had insisted on a particular minimum IQ for active service.
Indeed, if you look at the calibre of the top ranks of the US armed forces you might think the country should use objective tests long after entry to officer training. That assumes, of course, that there is a useful objective test for being a loathsome, conniving, incompetent sociopath.
It's a bit of a misguided cliche that highly intellectual people are impractical. Many are indeed highly practically accomplished. The trouble over this is derived of our extremely limited concepts of what constitutes intelligence and intellect.
DJ - I agree, it is a class war. I once read that the IQ of offspring trends towards the population mean, so high IQ parents may have lower IQ kids. It does seem quite common for elite families to decline after a few generations.
Sobers - one problem seems to be that we no longer select those kids who would benefit most from an academic education, which could be 10% or less. Shoving millions through university doesn't seem to have achieved anything worthwhile. I don't see why becoming a doctor should not be an apprentice scheme with some academic input. Start at the bottom as a nurse and work your way up.
Sam - they are convinced they know better, but with the internet available to everyone they don't. It feels like a major social change.
DCB - before I retired I encountered the curse of career managers who are supposed to be able to manage anything without any technical expertise in what they are managing. It didn't work.
dearieme - "Socialists objected to their plucking out intelligent children from poor families and identifying them as suitable for an academic education." That's what I've heard too. A chap who has left comments here in the past knew a Labour councillor who once admitted it. They didn't want intelligent children to end up voting Tory.
Tammly - I see it as a problem where people who are not highly intellectual are steered away from practical subjects via university, although the whole thing is a little tongue in cheek.
@AKH
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_toward_the_mean
DJ - I believe this has been tested with respect to IQ, but I don't have a link.
Sorry I'm a bit late to the party here but I thought this may be relevant.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10510633/amp/Oxford-University-advertises-history-lecturer-PhD-19-743-year.html
How about a lecturer who cannot afford lace up Oxfords?
Andy - I don't know how they would fill a post like that. Maybe they just don't.
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