“As the dog returns to his vomit, the fool
repeats his folly.” Proverbs
26:11
“The whole problem with the world is that fools
and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of
doubts.” Bertrand Russell
“Lake Wobegon … where all the children are
above average.” Garrison
Keillor
Why is it that people
who are so lacking in wisdom seem to be so excruciatingly confident?
As I was doing battle with the construction on
the Gardiner Expressway a couple of weeks ago (not much fun), I had the
somewhat compensatory pleasure of listening to Ideas in the Afternoon on the subject of The Fool’s Dilemma. The show presented one of the most baffling tendencies that almost all
humans have – we overestimate both our own intelligence and our own kindness. Our
brains take shortcuts and jump to conclusions which flatter us.
The documentary reviews
a wide range of psychological research about how we see our own judgment and our
profound inability to objectively understand our own abilities and blind spots.
Why has the human brain evolved to be what the show describes as an
illusion-making machine? They argue that in our far distant past, those who
were able to trust their gut reactions and react quickly – in a fight or flight
mode – tended to survive longer than the intellectual analytical crowd. These two
different ways of thinking – the fast, intuitive gut reaction and the slow,
conscious, intellectual, analytical process – are inter-related. It is
recognized that the slower conscious thought process uses filters to take in mainly
evidence that support the earlier intuitive response. Confirmation bias is what
we call the tendency of our brains to take in the information that supports our
hypothesis and ignore the data which contradicts it. It is a powerful
contributor to The Fool’s Dilemma.
For many years, I have
enjoyed all those exercises and games that show how our brains toy with us, and
I’m continually amazed by how perception is often far off from reality. A few
favourite examples are:
·
The fact
that our noses are always in our field of sight, yet we never see it unless we consciously
over-ride our sub-conscious filter and focus on it. (I suspect that all of you
are staring down at your noses right now.)
·
The brain’s
tendency to see through clear errors in writing because it is interpolating the
meaning (and leading you to perceive the error-free version.) Here is
an example.
·
There are
a whole bunch of examples on
this site that illustrate this – test yourself
The show includes
discussions with Dr. David Dunning, co-author of the Dunning Kruger Effect – a family
of characteristics, but best known is that incompetent people tend not to know
that they are lacking in competence. Dunning also discusses ‘the double burden
of incompetence’ – first is that it prevents you from getting to the right
answer. Second, it prevents you from realizing that you can’t get to the right
answer.
Dunning and
Kruger proposed that, for a given skill, incompetent people will:
·
tend
to overestimate their own level of skill;
·
fail
to recognize genuine skill in others;
·
fail
to recognize the extremity of their inadequacy;
·
recognize
and acknowledge their own previous lack of skill, if they are exposed to
training for that skill
None of this is news was
a big surprise to me (… perhaps a perfect case study of the Dunning-Kruger
Effect!) However, the show’s participants also make a compelling case how the
second burden of incompetence is not limited to the fools. To paraphrase the
host, Laura Penny, while the fool does not know how stupid he is, equally true
is that the genius does not know how stupid he is.
Certainly in my experience,
it is more often the people who are very bright (and as a result are often right)
who have the greatest difficulty recognizing or acknowledging when they may not
be right.
This whole dynamic poses
huge challenges in education. To put it succinctly, how to we help students
appreciate the difference between intelligence and wisdom?
How can we help young
people (and adults for that matter) to break through The Fools Dilemma and be more comfortable with the idea of being wrong?
The confidence of
youth is both fragile and double-edged. The idea of trying something bold –
that no one else has done – is altogether too uncommon for those of us in
middle age. Risk-taking (for a good reason) is significantly undervalued in North
America. The Fool’s Dilemma certainly
helps buttress those who are inclined to be bold. For teenagers, the encouragement
to reach beyond their grasp is an important factor in fulfilling potential.
Just as important, how
can we ensure that their brains, when in the slow conscious analytical mode,
are completely open to evidence that may contradict their gut reaction. This is
a wonderful example of the central notion of critical thinking. The problem is
that such ability tends to be in tension with healthy confidence, esteem, and
optimism. The psychologists interviewed suggest that the only exceptions to The Fool’s Dilemma are those who suffer
from clinical depression.
So, what is the
answer? Of course, we must continue to encourage our students to think boldly,
to aim high, and to test the unknown. At the same time, however, we need to provide
them the tools to overcome our tendency towards confirmation bias. And these
are most critical to those with the highest capabilities … a club which pretty
much everyone feels s/he belongs in.
Remember the Oracle of
Delphi’s pronouncement on Socrates: he was the only truly wise man in the land
because he alone understood that he knew nothing.
