Are ordinary people smarter than the intellectuals?

Posted on 31 May 2015 by Scottish-Sceptic

I’ve noticed an interesting phenomena online which is that overwhelmingly, if its a letter or a small blog or just a comment on a pretty mundane country snoose-paper, the sentiment has moved overwhelmingly toward sceptical.
But if its a Royal Society of “science”, the Biased Broadcasting Company or a lot of groups who consider themselves to be “intellectually superior” – then they are arrogant that global warming is “true” (even thought they personally have not looked at the subject themselves but they know they belong to a group where someone did – at least they’re sure it’s been looked at and … well they are just articulating “science” because that’s what people who call themselves “scientists” say) .
What is certain, is that those outside the “intellectuals” were first to spot the pause, first to recognise that models that did not predict the pause could not predict climate and first to recognise that the intellectuals were deluded about their own abilities.
The common explanation for this is “group-think”. But now I am beginning to wonder whether the real explanation is that ordinary people are actually smarter than the “intellectuals”. (Call it a hypothesis)
My own belief is that more or less we each are given the same intelligence at birth. That more or less we all develop our intelligence at the same rate …. BUT THAT SOME CHOOSE TO SPECIALISE IN NON-INTELLECTUAL ACTIVITIES (at least this is what I assume about people – I might be better in some areas – but doubtless they are better in others).
In other words, in order to become very intelligent in a specialist area – you can only do so by forsaking other areas which are commonly known as “common sense”. Or perhaps “knowing when you’re having the wool pulled over your eyes – sense”.
Son far from the Royal Society being cleverer as a group, they are in fact full of people who have concentrated their intellectual development toward their specialist subject – but unfortunately, that has entailed a much lower IQ in common sense – in knowing when other people are deluded.

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4 Responses to Are ordinary people smarter than the intellectuals?

  1. Roy Hartwell says:
    31 May 2015 at 09:09

    it was certainly my experience in 43 years of working in the science field that there was a huge difference between ‘brilliance’ and ‘common sense’. Many of the PhDs I worked with were extremely bright but completely devoid of any practical everyday skills. that’s why the mix of ‘Boffin’ and ‘Technician’ worked so well. The boffins ‘modelled’ the experiments the technicians carried them out and collected the data, often then helping to put them into context with the original aims.
    Surely this is a pointer to what has gone so wrong in the current ‘Climate Science’ disaster.

  2. Scottish-Sceptic says:
    31 May 2015 at 09:58

    But I think it’s more than that. Almost as if the ability to detect “group think” is highest amongst people who one does not think as “intellectual” and lowest in those that are.
    There was recent research suggesting that people are better detecting lies as a group than even the best individual on their own. It might be something similar.
    The big problem is that “intelligence” is something that is spoken of and measured by those in academia – so for obvious reasons, academia tends to see as “good” the type of thinking that academics do well. That leaves the possibility that there are forms of intelligence which are never discussed, because they are not ones the academics excel at.

  3. TinyCO2 says:
    31 May 2015 at 11:18

    My Mum has a asthma specialist who said he learnt more from his patients than his patients learnt from him because he just studied the subject, they lived it. I think enthusiasm often trumps duty when it come to getting to the bottom of an issue. That doesn’t mean that the non intellectuals can’t be dead wrong. Take homeopathy for instance.
    I do agree with the general principle of believing in authority. But like you, I think they go wrong when they become too immersed in their field. They seem to lose sight of what they’re aiming for. They’ve slipped into a bad habbit of speaking only to the lowest common denominator, which means lying by ommision. The public have responded by wondering what the true story is. We learnt the skill by watching politicians but we recognise it in scientists when we see it. It’s beome second nature to many of us to check the real story from the internet. The smartest treat what they read with caution and look for many sources.

  4. catweazle666 says:
    31 May 2015 at 18:58

    A few years ago, perhaps the cleverest scientist I have ever met in my life – enough doctorates, professorships, honours etc. to paper the average living room – was told by his wife: “I’m off out. Our dinner is in the oven, when the buzzer goes, turn it off.
    So when the buzzer went, he did precisely as instructed, and turned the buzzer off…

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