The Intelligence Trap

by David Robson

  4 Fox newsreel of an interview with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1927). Available at Public Domain Review, https://publicdomainreview.org/collections/sir-arthur-conan-doyle-interview-1927/.

  5 Eby, M. (21 March 2012), ‘Hocus Pocus’, Paris Review blog, https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2012/03/21/hocus-pocus/.

  6 Tversky, A. and Kahneman, D. (1974), ‘Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases’, Science, 185, 1124?31.

  7 For an accessible description of this argument, see Stanovich, K.E. (2009), ‘Rational and Irrational Thought: The Thinking That IQ Tests Miss’, Scientific American Mind, 20(6), 34?9.

  8 There is good evidence, for instance, that children naturally reject information if it contradicts ‘common sense’ theories of the world, and they need to learn the scientific method from the people they trust. So a child growing up in an environment that rejects science will naturally adopt those views, regardless of their intelligence. Bloom, P. and Weisberg, D.S. (2007), ‘Childhood Origins of Adult Resistance to Science’, Science, 316(5827), 996–7.

  9 ‘Knowledge projection from an island of false beliefs might explain the phenomenon of otherwise intelligent people who get caught in a domain-specific web of falsity that, because of projection tendencies, they cannot escape. Such individuals often use their considerable computational power to rationalize their beliefs and to ward off the arguments of skeptics.’ Stanovich, K.E., West, R.F. and Toplak, M.E. (2016), The Rationality Quotient: Toward a Test of Rational Thinking, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Kindle Edition (Kindle Locations 3636–9).

  10 Stanovich, K. (1993), ‘Dysrationalia: A New Specific Learning Difficulty’, Journal of Learning Difficulties, 26(8), 501?15.

  11 For a helpful explanation of the principles, see Swinscow, T.D.V. (1997), Statisics at Square One, ninth edition. Available online at http://www.bmj.com/about-bmj/resources-readers/publications/statistics-square-one/11-correlation-and-regression.

  12 Stanovich, West and Toplak, The Rationality Quotient (Kindle Locations 2757, 2838). Some early studies had suggested the correlations to be even weaker. See Stanovich, K.E. and West, R.F. (2008), ‘On the Relative Independence of Thinking Biases and Cognitive Ability’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94(4), 672?95.

  13 Stanovich and West, ‘On the Relative Independence of Thinking Biases and Cognitive Ability’.

  14 Xue, G., He, Q., Lei, X., Chen, C., Liu, Y., Chen, C., et al. (2012), ‘The Gambler’s Fallacy Is Associated with Weak Affective Decision Making but Strong Cognitive Ability’, PLOS One, 7(10): e47019, https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0047019.

  15 Schwitzgebel, Eric and Fiery Cushman (2015), ‘Philosophers’ Biased Judgments Persist Despite Training, Expertise and Reflection’, Cognition, 141, 127–37.

  16 West, R.F., Meserve, R.J. and Stanovich, K.E. (2012), ‘Cognitive Sophistication Does Not Attenuate the Bias Blind Spot’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103(3), 506?19.

  17 Stanovich, West and Toplak, The Rationality Quotient.

  18 Stanovich, K.E. and West, R.F. (2014), ‘What Intelligence Tests Miss’, Psychologist, 27, 80?3, https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-27/edition-2/what-intelligence-tests-miss.

  19 Stanovich, West and Toplak, The Rationality Quotient (Kindle Location 2344).

  20 Bruine de Bruin, W., Parker, A.M. and Fischhoff, B. (2007), ‘Individual Differences in Adult Decision Making Competence’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(5), 938?56.

  21 Kanazawa, S. and Hellberg, J.E.E.U. (2010), ‘Intelligence and Substance Use’, Review of General Psychology, 14(4), 382?96.

  22 Zagorsky, J. (2007), ‘Do You Have To Be Smart To Be Rich? The Impact of IQ on Wealth, Income and Financial Distress’, Intelligence, 35, 489?501.

  23 Swann, M. (8 March 2013). The professor, the bikini model, and the suitcase full of trouble. New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/magazine/the-professor-the-bikini-model-and-the-suitcase-full-of-trouble.html

  24 Rice, T.W. (2003), ‘Believe It Or Not: Religious and Other Paranormal Beliefs in the United States’, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 42(1), 95–106.

  25 Bouvet, R. and Bonnefon, J.F. (2015), ‘Non-reflective Thinkers Are Predisposed To Attribute Supernatural Causation To Uncanny Experiences’, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 41(7), 955?61.

  26 Cooper, J. (1990), The Case of the Cottingley Fairies, London: Robert Hale.

  27 Conan Doyle, A.C. (1922), The Coming of the Fairies, London: Hodder & Stoughton.

  28 Cooper, J. (1982), ‘Cottingley: At Last the Truth’, The Unexplained, 117, 2338?40.

  29 Miller, R. (2008), The Adventures of Arthur Conan Doyle, London: Harvill Secker, p. 403.

  30 Hyman, R. (2002), in Why Smart People Can Be So Stupid, ed. Sternberg, R., New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 18?19.

  31 Perkins, D.N., Farady, M. and Bushey, B. (1991), ‘Everyday Reasoning and the Roots of Intelligence’, in Perkins, D., Voss, James F. and Segal, Judith W. (eds), Informal Reasoning and Education, Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, pp. 83?105.

  32 For a fuller discussion of this study, see Perkins, D.N. (1995), Outsmarting IQ, New York: Free Press, pp. 131?5.

  33 Perkins, D.N. and Tishman, S. (2001), ‘Dispositional Aspects of Intelligence’, in Collis, J.M. and Messick, S. (eds), Intelligence and Personality: Bridging the Gap in Theory and Measurement, Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, pp. 233?57.

  34 Kahan, D.M., Peters, E., Dawson, E.C. and Slovic, P. (2017), ‘Motivated Numeracy and Enlightened Self-government’, Behavioural Public Policy, 1, 54?86.

  35 For a fuller discussion of the ways that increased knowledge can backfire, see Flynn, D.J., Nyhan, B. and Reifler, J. (2017), ‘The Nature and Origins of Misperceptions: Understanding False and Unsupported Beliefs about Politics’, Advances in Political Psychology, 38(S1), 127?50. And also Taber, C.S. and Lodge, M. (2006), ‘Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs’, American Journal of Political Science, 50, 755–69.

  36 Kahan, D.M., et al. (2012), ‘The Polarizing Impact of Science Literacy and Numeracy on Perceived Climate Change Risks’, Nature Climate Change, 2(10), 732?5. Kahan, D.M., Wittlin, M., Peters, E., Slovic, P., Ouellette, L.L., Braman, D. and Mandel, G.N. (2011), ‘The Tragedy of the Risk-perception Commons: Culture Conflict, Rationality Conflict, and Climate Change’, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1871503. Bolsen, T., Druckman, J.N. and Cook, F.L. (2015), ‘Citizens’, Scientists’, and Policy Advisors’ Beliefs about Global Warming’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 658(1), 271?95.

  37 Hamilton, L.C., Hartter, J. and Saito, K. (2015), ‘Trust in Scientists on Climate Change and Vaccines’, SAGE Open, 5(3), doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244015602752.

  38 Kahan, D.M., Landrum, A., Carpenter, K., Helft, L. and Hall Jamieson, K. (2017), ‘Science Curiosity and Political Information Processing’, Political Psychology, 38(S1), 179?99.

  39 Kahan, D.M. (2017), ‘Ordinary Science Intelligence’: A Science-Comprehension Measure for Study of Risk and Science’, Journal of Risk Research, 20(8), 995?1016.

  40 Nyhan, B., Reifler, J. and Ubel, P.A. (2013), ‘The Hazards of Correcting Myths about Health Care Reform’, Medical Care, 51(2), 127?32. For a discussion of the misperceptions around ObamaCare, see Politifact’s Lie of the Year: ‘Death Panels’, Politifact, 18 December 2009, http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2009/dec/18/politifact-lie-year-death-panels/.

  41 Koehler, J.J. (1993), ‘The Influence of Prior Beliefs on Scientific Judgments of Evidence Quality’, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 56(1), 28–55. See also Dan Kahan’s discussion of the paper, in light of recent research on motivated reasoning: Kahan, D.M. (2016), ‘The Politically Motivated Reasoning Paradigm, Part 2: What Politically Motivated Reasoning Is and How to Measure It’, in Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences, doi: 10.1002/9781118900772.

  42 Including, apparently, $25,000 from his US book tour o
f 1922. Ernst, B.M.L. and Carrington, H. (1971), Houdini and Conan Doyle: The Story of a Strange Friendship, New York: Benjamin Blom, p. 147.

  43 In this recording from the British Library, Conan Doyle explains the many benefits he has drawn from his belief in spiritualism: http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/files/listen-to-sir-arthur-conan-doyle-on-spiritualism.mp3.

  44 Fox newsreel of an interview with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1927). Available at Public Domain Review, https://publicdomainreview.org/collections/sir-arthur-conan-doyle-interview-1927/.

  45 As his biographer, Russell Miller, describes: ‘Once Conan Doyle made up his mind, he was unstoppable, impervious to argument, blind to contradictory evidence, untroubled by self-doubt.’ Miller, The Adventures of Arthur Conan Doyle, chapter 20.

  46 Bechtel, S. and Stains, L.R. (2017), Through a Glass Darkly: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the Quest to Solve the Greatest Mystery of All, New York: St Martin’s Press, p. 147.

  47 Panek, R. (2005), ‘The Year of Albert Einstein’, Smithsonian Magazine, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-year-of-albert-einstein-75841381/.

  48 Further examples can be found in the following interview with the physicist John Moffat, including the fact that Einstein denied strong evidence for the existence of black holes: Folger, T. (September 2004), ‘Einstein’s Grand Quest for a Unified Theory’, Discover, http://discovermagazine.com/2004/sep/einsteins-grand-quest. See also Mackie, G. (2015), ‘Einstein’s Folly: How the Search for a Unified Theory Stumped Him until His Dying Day’, The Conversation, http://theconversation.com/einsteins-folly-how-the-search-for-a-unified-theory-stumped-him-to-his-dying-day-49646.

  49 Isaacson, W. (2007), Einstein: His Life and Universe, London: Simon & Schuster, pp. 341?7.

  50 Schweber, S.S. (2008), Einstein and Oppenheimer: The Meaning of Genius, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, p. 282. See also Oppenheimer, R. (17 March 1966), ‘On Albert Einstein’, New York Review of Books, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/1966/03/17/on-albert-einstein/.

  51 Hook, S. (1987), Out of Step: An Unquiet Life in the 20th Century. London: Harper & Row. See also Riniolo, T. and Nisbet, L. (2007), ‘The Myth of Consistent Skepticism: The Cautionary Case of Albert Einstein’, Skeptical Inquirer, 31(1), http://www.csicop.org/si/show/myth_of_consistent_skepticism_the_cautionary_case_of_albert_einstein.

  52 Eysenck, H. (1957), Sense and Nonsense in Psychology, Harmondsworth: Penguin, p. 108.

  53 These are exceptional cases. But the issue of bias in the day-to-day workings of science has come to increasing prominence in recent years, with concerns that many scientists may engage in the wishful thinking that had plagued Conan Doyle. In the 1990s and early 2000s, the psychologist Kevin Dunbar spent years studying the thinking of scientists at eight different laboratories – attending their weekly meetings and discussing their latest findings. He found that myside thinking was rife, with many scientists unconsciously distorting the interpretation of their experimental results to fit their current hypothesis, or deliberately searching for new and more convoluted reasons to make their hypotheses fit the data. Medical researchers appear particularly likely to cling to newsworthy results, while overlooking serious methodological flaws. See, for instance, Dunbar, K. (2000), ‘How Scientists Think in the Real World’, Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 21(1), 49?58. Wilson, T.D., DePaulo, B.M., Mook, D.G. and Klaaren, K.J. (1993), ‘Scientists’ Evaluations of Research: The Biasing Effects of the Importance of the Topic’, Psychological Science, 4(5), 322?5.

  54 Offit, P. (2013), ‘The Vitamin Myth: Why We Think We Need Supplements’, The Atlantic, 19 July 2013, https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/07/the-vitamin-myth-why-we-think-we-need-supplements/277947/.

  55 Enserink, M. (2010), ‘French Nobelist Escapes ‘‘Intellectual Terror’’ To Pursue Radical Ideas In China’, Science, 330(6012), 1732. For a further discussion of these controversies, see: Butler, D. (2012). Nobel fight over African HIV centre. Nature, 486(7403), 301-2. https://www.nature.com/news/nobel-fight-over-african-hiv-centre-1.10847

  56 King, G. (2011), ‘Edison vs. Westinghouse: A Shocking Rivalry’, Smithsonian Magazine, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/edison-vs-westinghouse-a-shocking-rivalry-102146036/.

  57 Essig, M. (2003), Edison and the Electric Chair, Stroud, Gloucestershire: Sutton.

  58 Essig, Edison and the Electric Chair, p. 289.

  59 Essig, Edison and the Electric Chair, p. 289.

  60 Isaacson, W. (2011), Steve Jobs, London: Little, Brown, pp. 422?55. Swaine, J. (21 October 2011), ‘Steve Jobs “Regretted Trying to Beat Cancer with Alternative Medicine for So Long” ’, Daily Telegraph, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/apple/8841347/Steve-Jobs-regretted-trying-to-beat-cancer-with-alternative-medicine-for-so-long.html.

  61 Shultz, S., Nelson, E. and Dunbar, R.I.M. (2012), ‘Hominin Cognitive Evolution: Identifying Patterns and Processes in the Fossil and Archaeological Record’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 367(1599), 2130–40.

  62 Mercier, H. (2016), ‘The Argumentative Theory: Predictions and Empirical Evidence’, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 20(9), 689?700.

  Chapter 3

  1 The details of Brandon Mayfield’s experiences have been taken from my own interviews, as well as his press interviews, including a video interview with Open Democracy (30 November 2006) at https://www.democracynow.org/2006/11/30/exclusive_falsely_jailed_attorney_brandon_mayfield. I am also indebted to Mayfield, S. and Mayfield, B. (2015), Improbable Cause: The War on Terror’s Assault on the Bill of Rights, Salem, NH: Divertir. I have cross-checked many of the details with the Office of the Inspector General’s report on the FBI’s handling of Mayfield’s case.

  2 Jennifer Mnookin of UCLA, in ‘Fingerprints on Trial’, BBC World Service, 29 March 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00fvhl3.

  3 Office of the Inspector General (2006), ‘A Review of the FBI’s Handling of the Brandon Mayfield Case’, p. 80, https://oig.justice.gov/special/s0601/final.pdf.

  4 Office of the Inspector General, ‘A Review of the FBI’s Handling of the Brandon Mayfield Case, p. 80.

  5 Kassin, S.M., Dror, I.E. and Kukucka, J. (2013), ‘The Forensic Confirmation Bias: Problems, Perspectives, and Proposed Solutions’, Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 2(1), 42?52.

  6 Fisher, R. (2011), ‘Erudition Be Damned, Ignorance Really Is Bliss’, New Scientist, 211(2823), 39?41.

  7 Kruger, J. and Dunning, D. (1999), ‘Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-assessments’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(6), 1121?34.

  8 Dunning, D. (2011), ‘The Dunning–Kruger Effect: On Being Ignorant of One’s Own Ignorance’, in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 44, Cambridge, MA: Academic Press, pp. 247?96.

  9 Chiu, M.M. and Klassen, R.M. (2010), ‘Relations of Mathematics Self-Concept and Its Calibration with Mathematics Achievement: Cultural Differences among Fifteen-Year-Olds in 34 Countries’, Learning and Instruction, 20(1), 2?17.

  10 See, for example, ‘Why Losers Have Delusions of Grandeur’, New York Post, 23 May 2010, https://nypost.com/2010/05/23/why-losers-have-delusions-of-grandeur/. Lee, C. (2016), ‘Revisiting Why Incompetents Think They Are Awesome’, Ars Technica, 4 November 2016, https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/11/revisiting-why-incompetents-think-theyre-awesome/. Flam, F. (2017), ‘Trump’s “Dangerous Disability”? The Dunning?Kruger Effect’, Bloomberg, 12 May 2017, https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-05-12/trump-s-dangerous-disability-it-s-the-dunning-kruger-effect.

  11 Fisher, M. and Keil, F.C. (2016), ‘The Curse of Expertise: When More Knowledge Leads to Miscalibrated Explanatory Insight’, Cognitive Science, 40(5), 1251?69.

  12 Son, L.K. and Kornell, N. (2010), ‘The Virtues of Ignorance’, Behavioural Processes, 83(2), 207?12.

  13 Fisher and Keil, ‘The Curse of Expertise’.

  14 Ottati, V., Price, E., Wilson
, C. and Sumaktoyo, N. (2015), ‘When Self-Perceptions of Expertise Increase Closed-Minded Cognition: The Earned Dogmatism Effect’, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 61, 131?8.

  15 Quoted in Hammond, A. L. (1984). A Passion to Know: Twenty Profiles in Science, New York: Scribner, p.5. This viewpoint is also discussed, in depth, in Roberts, R.C., Wood, W.J. (2007), Intellectual Virtues: p 253. An Essay in Regulative Epistemology, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  16 Much of this information on de Groot’s life comes from an obituary in the Observer of the American Psychological Society, published online on 1 November 2006: http://www. psychologicalscience.org/observer/in-memoriam-adriaan-dingeman-de-groot-1914-2006#.WUpLDIrTUdV.

  17 Mellenbergh, G.J. and Hofstee, W.K.B. (2006), ‘Commemoration Adriaan Dingeman de Groot’, in: Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences (ed.), Life and Memorials, Amsterdam: Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences, pp. 27?30.

  18 Busato, V. (2006), ‘In Memoriam: Adriaan de Groot (1914?2006)’, Netherlands Journal of Psychology, 62, 2?4.

  19 de Groot, A. (ed.) (2008), Thought and Choice in Chess, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, p. 288. See also William Chase and Herbert Simon’s classic follow-up experiment that provides further evidence for the role of chunking in expert performance: Chase, W. G. and Simon, H. A. (1973). Perception in Chess. Cognitive Psychology, 4(1), 55-81.

  20 Hodges, N.J., Starkes, J.L. and MacMahon, C. (2006), ‘Expert Performance in Sport: A Cognitive Perspective’, in Ericsson, K.A., Charness, N., Feltovich, P.J., et al. (eds), Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  21 Dobbs, D. (2006), ‘How to Be a Genius’, New Scientist, 191(2569), 40?3.

  22 Kalakoski, V. and Saariluoma, P. (2001), ‘Taxi Drivers’ Exceptional Memory of Street Names’, Memory and Cognition, 29(4), 634?8.