Are people who think they're smart actually dumb?
Have you noticed that people with a high opinion of themselves might actually be less intelligent?
Or that people who think they know things 100% actually are very wrong, while people who are not always sure of something are often correct?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect
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I think so... Whenever someone refers to themselves as being smart or having a high IQ I wish they would get inundated with questions about what great things they have accomplished with their exceptional cognitive ability. Of the genuinely smart people I have been lucky enough to know I notice something peculiar. They are always on about what they don't understand, and what they are trying to find out. 1
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There's probably no real correlation between how smart you think you are, and how smart you really are. It's very difficult to compare yourself with other people because you see yourself from the inside, with all your failures and successes, and you see other people from the outside, which is only the part that they choose to let you see. How can you compare that? I remember reading a study once that compared what people thought of themselves, and what other people thought of them. It mostly focused on their effectiveness at work, not on how smart they thought they were. Anyway, the study found no correlation between how effective they thought they were, and how effective other people thought they were. I think the same probably applies to this question as well. 2
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Yes, I would say I am smarter than some people just looking at my past writings on here. I am writing a paper on psychology and I am reading Understanding Physics, by Isaac Asimov. But I do not consider myself a genius or even above average. Perhaps I am born dumber than average. However, I do feel a lot more curious than other people. I understand that I don't know everything and never will, but that's exactly why I continue studying and learning. Someday maybe I will know everything. I'm fine if I don't. I just enjoy experiencing life and knowing things. Yet, looking at some debaters on here who seem to act as if they were right by default, so incredibly right that they don't bother explaining why someone should believe their point, have misinformed opinions and information and just a lack of curiosity to want to know why other people think differently, I wonder if I might be the same way. 3
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I also think you have a pretty good head on your shoulders, based on your writings, but I don't really think you can compare yourself to others in this way. You've obviously done a lot of thinking about the subjects you post on, but you're comparing yourself to others who have done less thinking on these subjects. You're writing be look more thought out than theirs is, but that doesn't mean they're less intelligent. They might just have interests in other areas. Some of them may know a lot about cars, or history, or international relations. They may not speak as intelligently about science, but that doesn't mean they're not smart. Curiosity is a sign of intelligence - you cannot be intelligent without curiousity. I have read some of you debates and arguments, Mackindale, and I think that you're intelligence is above average. But I do think that you can be intelligent and know it. Just thinking you are intelligent does not make you stupid - and vice versa. Not necessarily. If someone who is smart thinks they are smart, then i guess they're right. Stephen Hawking doesn't think he's stupid. Einstein, though a failure at school, didn't think " oh i'm stupid." Yes some people who go around saying "im clevererer than you!" are most likely stupid. But not all the time. I think a lot of people who think they are intelligent may not be, and a lot of people who think they are not intelligent are. It works both ways. However some people who think they are intelligent really are intelligent - there are seven billion people in this world, and therefore making generalisations would rarely be 100% correct unless you just give a fact. The true smart people know they are smart. They have high levels of reasoning skills, empathy and whatnot, enough to be honest with themselves. Actually, they know they are smarter than the vast majority of people in the world, but they don't dwell on the fact- that's arrogance. They also understand that they have to use their inborn giftedness/whatever to do productive stuff, as opposed to strutting around proclaiming their intelligence. However, these people are much rarer than the overwhelming percent of the population who think they are smart when they are actually just average/act smart, which is (maybe?) part of the reason why this debate was started. So, I guess you could say it depends on a case-by-case scenario. 1
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Its better to keep the thought of being smarter than others to oneself. Its judgmental and it's also an opinion. The only smart people who think "other people are dumb" are IMO the ones that keep it to themselves and try not to judge others. I mean who recognize its a flaw and not a good thing. If someone can recognize that and change to be less judgmental of others then that person is smart for making the right positive change... unless someone can differentiate thinking of oneself as smart from thinking the average person is dumb. I'm probably dumb for calling the average person dumb because that makes the dangerous assumption that they are dumber than I am. Its sort of a superiority complex. lol jk. |
