Stultitiae Laus, or In praise of folly.
HE THAT FOLLOWS NATURE IS NEVER LOST.
-- BACON
It is hard to disagree with Desiderius Erasmus. Intelligence has been greatly overrated.
A short while ago someone on LJ asked to name a walk of life in which stupidity is a disqualification. Not ignorance, not irrationality, just common stupidity. Nobody was able to name such an occupation.
I vouch that among scientists the percentage of idiots is the same or even higher as in the general population, and my own middling intellect is solemn testimony that very little of this commodity is needed to do a passable job in my chosen field. There is almost no correlation between being smart and being successful, in science or any other human endeavor. Even people having high IQ seldom use it, and the ones that do often use it for no other purpose than fooling themselves and the others. Likewise, much wisdom is much grief, and depression is not helping to live a happy life. As with any other human traits, one can expect the IQ to be widely distributed; there will be a small number of highly intelligent people in the tail of this distribution. However, this does not prove that it is this tail that wags the dog. We do not claim that the progress of humankind is due to the exceptional individuals that are taller than 7’. This claim, however, is made about the intelligence. The chief reason for making it is that the tall folks tend to keep their ideas to themselves, preferring physical action. The folks with a high IQ are more verbose. As the argument is made precisely by the intellectuals, it is not particularly convincing, because it is self-serving. The only reason I discuss it here at all is that some of the self-appointed intellectuals lecturing on the merits of intellect are congenital idiots, which makes their impartial opinion worthy of note.
Looking at Mother Nature, do we see intelligence paying off? As different people mean different things using this word, let's narrow it down to learned behavior. Is it really much better than instinct and morphological adaptations in terms of long-term survival and fitness? Absolutely not. There are more chickens in this world than ravens, and there are more cows than dolphins. It broke my heart the other day watching a TV program about tool-making apes cracking some hard nuts with boulders. The skill has to be passed from one generation to another, by close observation, and if even one generation is skipped, due to any kind of calamity (habitat loss, isolation, bottlenecking) this skill will disappear without a trace. Such a loss is a high-probability event, whereas the invention of this method is a low-probability event. The end is nigh.
People fare no better, of course. The Tasmanian aborigines have lost the use of fire in their small island isolation. Most of the knowledge of the classical period has been lost, and what had survived, had survived mainly by luck. It is too unreliable, whimsical. No wonder that one observes the highest dependence on learned behavior and intelligence in the recent evolutionary arrivals that have not been properly tested. This modernity is interpreted as evidence that intelligence "works," that it is a highly useful, universal adaptation that required elaborate hardwire, so that's why it's so recent. I doubt this view very much. We use such a tiny fraction of our brain for learned behavior, rationality, etc. that it is totally unclear why was not that possible before. What it really means is that intelligence provides only short-time benefit. The reliance on intelligence and learned behavior does not pay off in a long run. The smart lineages of the olden times have long been extinct: the advantage was real, but it was no match to the systematic benefit given by hardwire evolution. We see this in our computers, too: the first programs needed to be written in a very clever and highly efficient way to work at all. Except for high-end computation, these days people seldom bother to go to the same lengths. The similar process occurs in nature. An ape that has heritable callus on its forearm and instinctive use of this callus for cracking nuts will perform, in a very long run, much better than its smarter cousin playing with the boulders. Having a telescoping tongue works better for fishing ants than a twig in a clumsy hand of a chimp, and idiot savants finding 7-digit prime numbers in a few minutes show us the true value of conceptualizing "2x2=4" for computation. Intelligence is a means of the last resort, when better solutions cannot be developed in brief time whose pace is set by the competition and predators. As time goes by, there is less reliance on it, as the improvements are made. If that does not happen, the species becomes a goner in the next mass extinction event.
What should we make of the perfectly functioning, succeeding, highly professional nincompoops? They are our future. They convincingly demonstrate that intelligence is the ballast that may and should be dropped at the first opportunity. What the eggheads achieve through the exertion of their brilliant minds, these folks effortlessly achieve without straining their cortex. Stupidity makes them less cautious, it opens doors to unusual solutions that no sane person will ever try, and it perfectly blends with a sunny, outgoing personality, compounded with indifference to the others. It’s a win-win situation.
The brain, of course, can be used for better things than rational thinking, like, for instance, making music. I confess I have not met a single professional performer that.. well... Very nice people, though. A composer friend told me that my observation is essentially correct, and that is why some musicians perform and some compose, but seldom do both. He claims that high IQ gets in a way of great music. Perhaps. But that may be read as evidence of elimination of intelligence in favor of task specialization, on some intuitive level. I can say the same thing about my fellow idiot-scientists. There is a method in their idiocy that deserves admiration. This method cannot be articulated, and they fail miserably in formulating its essence, but it is often like - x - = +. The person of the minimal mental ability simply would not make two minuses in a row and so will never get to the pluses. A smart person would not monotonously exclude the alternatives that should not have been considered. A sane person would not try to solve the problem that is known to be very hard and obviously too ahead of a time, using a completely unsuitable method. And so forth. It is remarkable how many discoveries originate from totally misconceived research that should not have been attempted in the first place. Behind this imbecilic activity, with error-plagued and botched execution, is typically a really dense idea that the poor idiot cannot even express in a comprehensible way so that the others can judge it. But the blockhead will be stubbornly defending it, being equally buoyed by obstinacy and inability to understand reasonable arguments. It is as if some mighty force drives him towards a vague goal about which he can only mumble. And - surprise, surprise - here he is a few years later, finding a gem in the pile of substance that smart people avoid by a mile. Stupidity did pay off. Or, more frequently, it does not, but so are the celebrated smarts.
What is this marvelous wind that blows unto the ship of fools? Can it be that the crew is already soaring in the eternal abode of evolutionary heights while the Pharisees creep on the dirt exploring their rational flatland? Is folly our glorious future?
-- BACON
It is hard to disagree with Desiderius Erasmus. Intelligence has been greatly overrated.
A short while ago someone on LJ asked to name a walk of life in which stupidity is a disqualification. Not ignorance, not irrationality, just common stupidity. Nobody was able to name such an occupation.
I vouch that among scientists the percentage of idiots is the same or even higher as in the general population, and my own middling intellect is solemn testimony that very little of this commodity is needed to do a passable job in my chosen field. There is almost no correlation between being smart and being successful, in science or any other human endeavor. Even people having high IQ seldom use it, and the ones that do often use it for no other purpose than fooling themselves and the others. Likewise, much wisdom is much grief, and depression is not helping to live a happy life. As with any other human traits, one can expect the IQ to be widely distributed; there will be a small number of highly intelligent people in the tail of this distribution. However, this does not prove that it is this tail that wags the dog. We do not claim that the progress of humankind is due to the exceptional individuals that are taller than 7’. This claim, however, is made about the intelligence. The chief reason for making it is that the tall folks tend to keep their ideas to themselves, preferring physical action. The folks with a high IQ are more verbose. As the argument is made precisely by the intellectuals, it is not particularly convincing, because it is self-serving. The only reason I discuss it here at all is that some of the self-appointed intellectuals lecturing on the merits of intellect are congenital idiots, which makes their impartial opinion worthy of note.
Looking at Mother Nature, do we see intelligence paying off? As different people mean different things using this word, let's narrow it down to learned behavior. Is it really much better than instinct and morphological adaptations in terms of long-term survival and fitness? Absolutely not. There are more chickens in this world than ravens, and there are more cows than dolphins. It broke my heart the other day watching a TV program about tool-making apes cracking some hard nuts with boulders. The skill has to be passed from one generation to another, by close observation, and if even one generation is skipped, due to any kind of calamity (habitat loss, isolation, bottlenecking) this skill will disappear without a trace. Such a loss is a high-probability event, whereas the invention of this method is a low-probability event. The end is nigh.
People fare no better, of course. The Tasmanian aborigines have lost the use of fire in their small island isolation. Most of the knowledge of the classical period has been lost, and what had survived, had survived mainly by luck. It is too unreliable, whimsical. No wonder that one observes the highest dependence on learned behavior and intelligence in the recent evolutionary arrivals that have not been properly tested. This modernity is interpreted as evidence that intelligence "works," that it is a highly useful, universal adaptation that required elaborate hardwire, so that's why it's so recent. I doubt this view very much. We use such a tiny fraction of our brain for learned behavior, rationality, etc. that it is totally unclear why was not that possible before. What it really means is that intelligence provides only short-time benefit. The reliance on intelligence and learned behavior does not pay off in a long run. The smart lineages of the olden times have long been extinct: the advantage was real, but it was no match to the systematic benefit given by hardwire evolution. We see this in our computers, too: the first programs needed to be written in a very clever and highly efficient way to work at all. Except for high-end computation, these days people seldom bother to go to the same lengths. The similar process occurs in nature. An ape that has heritable callus on its forearm and instinctive use of this callus for cracking nuts will perform, in a very long run, much better than its smarter cousin playing with the boulders. Having a telescoping tongue works better for fishing ants than a twig in a clumsy hand of a chimp, and idiot savants finding 7-digit prime numbers in a few minutes show us the true value of conceptualizing "2x2=4" for computation. Intelligence is a means of the last resort, when better solutions cannot be developed in brief time whose pace is set by the competition and predators. As time goes by, there is less reliance on it, as the improvements are made. If that does not happen, the species becomes a goner in the next mass extinction event.
What should we make of the perfectly functioning, succeeding, highly professional nincompoops? They are our future. They convincingly demonstrate that intelligence is the ballast that may and should be dropped at the first opportunity. What the eggheads achieve through the exertion of their brilliant minds, these folks effortlessly achieve without straining their cortex. Stupidity makes them less cautious, it opens doors to unusual solutions that no sane person will ever try, and it perfectly blends with a sunny, outgoing personality, compounded with indifference to the others. It’s a win-win situation.
The brain, of course, can be used for better things than rational thinking, like, for instance, making music. I confess I have not met a single professional performer that.. well... Very nice people, though. A composer friend told me that my observation is essentially correct, and that is why some musicians perform and some compose, but seldom do both. He claims that high IQ gets in a way of great music. Perhaps. But that may be read as evidence of elimination of intelligence in favor of task specialization, on some intuitive level. I can say the same thing about my fellow idiot-scientists. There is a method in their idiocy that deserves admiration. This method cannot be articulated, and they fail miserably in formulating its essence, but it is often like - x - = +. The person of the minimal mental ability simply would not make two minuses in a row and so will never get to the pluses. A smart person would not monotonously exclude the alternatives that should not have been considered. A sane person would not try to solve the problem that is known to be very hard and obviously too ahead of a time, using a completely unsuitable method. And so forth. It is remarkable how many discoveries originate from totally misconceived research that should not have been attempted in the first place. Behind this imbecilic activity, with error-plagued and botched execution, is typically a really dense idea that the poor idiot cannot even express in a comprehensible way so that the others can judge it. But the blockhead will be stubbornly defending it, being equally buoyed by obstinacy and inability to understand reasonable arguments. It is as if some mighty force drives him towards a vague goal about which he can only mumble. And - surprise, surprise - here he is a few years later, finding a gem in the pile of substance that smart people avoid by a mile. Stupidity did pay off. Or, more frequently, it does not, but so are the celebrated smarts.
What is this marvelous wind that blows unto the ship of fools? Can it be that the crew is already soaring in the eternal abode of evolutionary heights while the Pharisees creep on the dirt exploring their rational flatland? Is folly our glorious future?