Do you often find yourself getting into arguments
with people over stupid stuff, like why the Earth cannot possibly be flat or whether the
moon is genuinely made of cheese? And, in your own mind, you are almost 100%
certain that the Earth is oblately spherical and the moon is, unfortunately not made of
delicious melty cheddar but boring old rocks. Yet incredibly you end up losing these arguments
against utterly moronic people. You know that you should have won the argument
and you provided them with countless irrefutable evidence yet no matter what you say, you somehow
fail to change their mind, or remotely shake their ostentatious self-confidence in their
erroneous views. Why is it so difficult to argue with stupid
people? Why do they refuse to listen to empirical
evidence and instead favour the wisdom that the smelly old weird bloke told them at the
pub? And why do they often think themselves more
intelligent than their words and actions would lead you to believe? Let’s find out. Neuroscientists think there are very real
and fascinating reasons and explanations for this frustrating phenomenon but before we
talk about these, we must establish whether our suspicions are true, do stupid people
think they’re smarter than they are. Over the past twenty years, two social psychologists
have been attempting to answer this question, David Dunning and Justin Kruger. David Dunning was inspired to begin this research
after reading a feature in the 1996 World Almanac. About a Pittsburgh bank robber, McArthur Wheeler,
who held up a bank at gunpoint, in broad daylight, without a mask. But strangely his face was covered in lemon
juice. When the police arrested him later at his
home he said: “but I wore the juice”. He explained how, since lemon juice is sometimes
used as invisible ink he thought that by covering his face in lemon juice he would become invisible
to other people and the security cameras. He apparently took a picture of himself whilst
wearing the lemon juice before the robbery to confirm his theory and remarkably, albeit
according to Wheeler’s own account, his face was not visible in the photo - police
were never quite able to explain this. But then, this is a man who tried to make
himself invisible with lemon juice so I wouldn’t put too much thought into it. Inspired by this blatant idiocy Dunning teamed
up with Kruger and conducted a series of experiments in which they got participants to rate themselves
on their grammar, logical reasoning and sense of humour. They then compared the participant’s self-appraisals
with the results of a series of tests they asked them to complete. The studies all concluded that people consistently
rate themselves as being far more competent at everything than they actually are. Most people in the studies performed far worse
on the tests than they believed they had done. A poll in 1980 conducted by a Swedish Psychologist
illustrated this nicely when it showed that 93% of American drivers considered their driving
ability to be above average - just think about that for a second, the maths don’t quite
add up. The research shows that an overestimation
of our talents is something we, mostly, all do, albeit some of us significantly more so
than others and that the more inferior a person’s talents and/or intelligence the greater the
degree with which they overestimate these. One of the biggest factors driving this is
the brain’s natural egocentric bias. First identified by psychologists in 1979,
it turns out that the brain absolutely loves itself and does everything it can to make
itself look good. Repeated studies have demonstrated the egocentric
bias is present in all types and ages. For example, we tend to associate ourselves
closely with positive events, and we take credit for things that other people achieve,
such as “My team played well” whereas when our favourite sports team loses we try
to distance ourselves “They performed poorly”. Similarly, we have no problem when we are
overpaid for work but we think it’s unfair when others are. We think that anyone who drives faster than
us is a lunatic yet anyone who drives slower is an idiot. You get the idea, your brain thinks it is
the best thing since single-celled organisms. But how does this relate to winning arguments? Basically, the brain will do anything it needs
to in order to save face. Your brain must look good no matter what - even
if this involves ignoring facts, making up facts or browbeating your intellectually-superior
opponent into submission. Your brain isn’t being a dick for the sake
of it - evolutionarily the egocentric bias makes a lot of sense for self-preservation. The hunter that steals the prey from other
hunters is more likely to survive. Our egocentric bias is so strong that even
when we irrevocably lose an argument, we convince ourselves in our own minds that we somehow
won. As the legendary author Dale Carnegie of the
seminal “How to Win Friends And Influence People” wrote, “You can’t win an argument
- Nine times out of ten, an argument ends with each of the contestants more firmly convinced
than ever that he is absolutely right.” There is, however, another reason why learned
people often walk away from arguments with those who possess the intellectual aptitude
of a veritable sea sponge feeling wholly disappointed. There is a general fear amongst the human
race of intelligence, even amongst the intelligentsia themselves. This is a very real phenomenon that numerous
neuroscientists have observed - true, we admire those of heightened intelligence yet we simultaneously
fear them. In modern society, we have no need to fear
those of superior physical might over oneself, unless you just made a pass at their wife. But say you meet a huge burly bloke at a dinner
party with guns larger than your entire torso. Most of us could converse with him rather
happily, without feeling intimidated. Whereas if we meet a weedy professor of astrophysics
at a dinner party that knows general relativity better than you know where you left your car
keys, then suddenly, and for reasons which are unclear to yourself, you feel intimidated
by him. Perhaps you don’t, if so, congratulations,
you’re probably rather intelligent or a psychopath. The reason for this disparity is strangely
related to the egocentric brain. We know how the bodybuilder gained his mass,
by relentlessly pounding the gym and protein. We know that if we could be half as arsed
or inclined as he then we too could match his level of esteemed physical prowess. And most importantly, we can usually predict
his intentions and actions, we don’t need to be as strong as him to know what he might
do - if we piss him off, he hits us in the face. Yet the scientist, unless we are intellectually
superior than he, and even if we are - then we will be unable to predict what he might
say or do. He could say something that will reveal our
lack of intelligence and make us look stupid. Thus we fear him, to compound this fear, unlike
the bodybuilder most of us will feel that even if we read 100 books we could never reach
the scientist’s level of intelligence. And rather pessimistically, research supports
the idea that many people are most likely, unable to. As I have previously covered in another video
- we all have the ability to improve our crystalised intelligence, our bank of facts and knowledge,
but once we hit our mid-20s the brain becomes less plastic, it is not totally, but mostly
set in its ways. Like a car that has already been built, parts
can be swapped out and polished up but ultimately there’s a limit to what one can do with
its performance. And thus, after this age, we lose the ability
to improve our fluid intelligence - that is the ability to pick up new skills quickly,
think on the spot, outwit your opponents and problem solve. So if the scientist has, not only impressive
crystalised intelligence but also greater fluid intelligence than us, then we subconsciously
know that this is a state of mental acuity that we are most likely, unable to ever reach. Biologically we are hard-wired to be scared
of this prospect and we will feel a natural propensity to repel that which we cannot better. So you may defensively say something stupid
to the scientist, even jokingly, such as ‘oh, a scientist, you think you’re so clever,
don’t you?’ even if he gave us no obvious reason to feel so intimidated. This has a reciprocal effect - clever people
are generally well aware of others fear and distrust of their intelligence and so feel
less self-confident when in argument or debate with a peer, even if they know they could
easily win. Also, most people become intelligence because
they have a proclivity to question their surroundings and their self. Intelligent people are generally more aware
of the fact that they don’t know everything - especially in the scientific fields it is
normal and expected for one to criticise their own theories and for colleagues and peers
to cross-examine them. Thus smart people will always question whether
they are as intelligent as they think they are, whether they put their own point across
adequately, and if, perhaps their opponent does, in fact, have a point in their ardent
cheesy moon and flat Earth beliefs, as bonkers as they may sound. So they will come away from the debate with
their head swirling with questions and self-doubt. Conversely, stupid people are far less likely
to question things including themselves, they tend to be less introspective, that’s probably
why they are still so stupid. So they seem and are far more confident in
their moronic, unfounded theories. They don’t need to question them or see
how they stack up when confronted with empirical evidence because they have never done so before
and they possess not a shred of self-doubt anyway. To add to all this, as the Dunning-Kruger
effect proved, stupid people rarely think of themselves as stupid. They have absolutely no idea that they have
less intelligence than a Swiss cheese. As Dunning and Kruger’s research demonstrated,
there is a direct correlation between a lack of intelligence and one’s high confidence
in their intelligence and vice-versa. To put it simply, inept people think they
are proficient and proficient people think themselves less so. Keep in mind that the Dunning Kruger effect
is not an absolute but a general trend, not all stupid people overestimate their intelligence
and some intelligent people are very aware of how smart they are and will happily tell
anyone who will listen. I’ll leave you with a great quote by the
late great comedian George Carlin that anyone who has ever despaired with human stupidity
will sympathise with “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of
them are stupider than that.” I’ve recently launched my first book which
I’m crowdfunding ‘Stick a Flag in it: 1,000 years of bizarre history from Britain
and beyond’. The crowdfunding campaign has reached 100%
so it’s definitely going to be published, thanks to everyone who has pledged. But there are still stretch goals to reach. So if you want a first-edition signed copy
then head on over to Unbound, the link is in the description, watch the launch video
if you haven’t already and pledge today. Thank you.
I mean, who’s to say who’s stupid and who’s smart? I think ignorance should be lessened by studying and reading but I think that comes with educating others.
because everybody assumes they're above average intelligence
Dunning Krueger Effect, probably.
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) Come with me INTJs, lets build a better world.
Surprisingly enough, no.
Best thing to do when confronted by one of these people is to walk away. Your brain will thank u later.
This video explains liberals in America.
Is this why there's a phenomenon of INTPs thinking that they're dumbasses ?
A lot of it boils down to people don't know what they don't know - the more you know about a subject the more complicated you realize it is.