Knowledge paradoxes

Why we are becoming dumber

Life consists of a multitude of paradoxes. This series of indeterminate blog posts sets to break them down, beginning with knowledge.

“One way of looking at paradox is as an indicator that we are dealing with two apparently valid world-pictures which yet do not concur.” - Iain McGilchrist

Knowledge paradoxes discussed herein include:

• The more you know the more you realize what you don’t know.

• The amount of information available to us is unprecedented yet we aren’t increasing our intelligence. In fact, we are becoming dumber.

First of all, what is knowledge?

the fact or condition of knowing something with familiarity gained through experience or association;

the range of one’s information or understanding

The more you know the more you realize what you don’t know.

“The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don’t know.” - Albert Einstein

“I know that I know nothing.” - Socrates

As we increase in our learning and maturity, we realize how little we actually know, which leads to humility. The opposite of this is the Dunning-Kruger effect: those with limited knowledge/competence greatly overestimate his/her abilities in that domain. It’s the illusion of confidence.

The inspiration behind this effect is too hilarious not to mention here. A man named McArthur Wheeler robbed two Pittsburgh banks in broad daylight nearly two decades ago. The oddity was not only did he fail to disguise his face, but he smiled at the surveillance cameras at both banks! After his unsurprisingly quick arrest, Mr. Wheeler was befuddled at seeing himself on the surveillance tapes. He proclaimed, “but I wore the juice”. McArthur surmised that rubbing lemon juice on his skin would result in his invisibility since, after all, lemon juice is used as invisible ink. If it works on paper it must work on skin, right? Psychologist David Dunning and his graduate student, Justin Kruger, saw this in the news and wished to investigate how someone could be so mistaken.

We all, at some point in our lives, have suffered from the peak of “Mount Stupid”. Not everyone matures past this point…so take heart if you are sitting at the bottom of the valley as it doesn’t have to be the final result.

The Dunning Kruger effect is one reason why I believe it’s pointless to argue with others.

¹

We believe if they saw the facts as we did they would immediately change their mind because of how obvious it is.

²

This can range from the mundane short thesis to Russian’s propaganda spouting off that it’s the Ukrainians killing themselves, not Mother Russia.

“Never argue with a fool; onlookers may not be able to tell the difference. - Mark Twain

Crucially, a great many “objective beliefs” are actually subjective and/or cannot be impartially proven. Often what we view as objective beliefs are in reality strongly held emotions with a heap of confirmation bias baked in. In other words, we will not change the other’s mind even with perfect, rational information because it is a tightly-held belief, not a disinterested discussion. We emphasis accepting information that confirms our viewpoint and disregard what others see.

³

The Internet and algos have supercharged information self-selection, reducing our knowledge base. We become trapped in our world of bias reinforcement instead of considering other viewpoints. To effectively know where you stand, one must understand the opposite side as well as the motivations behind these viewpoints.

It is the rare person who changes his/her mind in the face of information that runs counter to his/her viewpoint. Be that person, as she/he is secure enough in themselves to not base one’s value on being right but rather on finding the truth as best we can.

The amount of information available to us is unprecedented yet we aren’t increasing our intelligence. In fact, we are becoming dumber.

The Flynn effect speaks to the widely accepted, general trend of Western IQs demonstrating a significant rise since the 1930s. How then can I state that intelligence is not increasing in light of this fact? Because it is a specific type of knowledge that is improving - our ability to take tests rather than true “g” (general intelligence). For example, re-taking an IQ tests often leads to a 3 point IQ score increase.

⁴

If we were to compare our average IQ score against the mean in 1900, those living over a century ago would have had an IQ score between 50 and 70. According to Flynn, “If IQ gains are in any sense real, we are driven to the absurd conclusion that the majority of our ancestors were mentally retarded”.

⁵

The reverse Flynn effect posits that intelligence is decreasing. Average IQ scores have dropped in many Western countries since the mid-1990s. Declines are particularly acute at the top end of the intelligence range, with a 6 point drop between 1980 and 2008.

Additional tests done with Piagetian educational stage assessments have confirmed lower intelligence levels. A test called “Volume and Heaviness” necessitates understanding how much water an object displaces and has predictive validity across science and math. In 1976, 54% of boys and 27% of girls succeeded in this area. By 2004, the success rate for both was 17%.

Further, physiological tests back up the reverse Flynn effect. Two physiological measures have been found to correlate with IQ closely and are free from training effects: reaction time and color acuity. Both have fallen since the late nineteenth century.

We have gained in abstract knowledge to the detriment of concrete knowledge. Flynn calls our abstract knowledge “scientific spectacles”. This way of looking at the world involves “vocabulary, taxonomies, and detachment of logic and the hypothetical from concrete referents”. Those with “pre-scientific spectacles” think in terms of functional relationships.

For example, asking an American in 1900, “what do dogs and rabbits have in common,” would elicit, “You use dogs to hunt rabbits”. Scientific spectacles would answer, “they are both mammals”. The mammal answer results in a higher IQ score as formal categorization carries a higher weighting. Flynn said that saying a pound and a yard are “both measures” (general category) results in a higher score than “you can measure things with them” (main function).

Even when we think we see the whole in reality we are likely only looking at the part. For an admittedly abstract review of the whole versus the parts, I recommend my prior post Reductionism and Reintegration: The dangers of reductionism and how to simplify without losing the essence of the thing itself.

In our Western societies, the abstract is advantaged over functionality. And why would we need functionality? Via specialization, we have evolved to where we no longer need to know where our food comes from or how buildings are made or how our houses are powered with electricity. Many of us have fallen into the trap of thinking we are smarter than those that supply us with our basic necessities when in reality we are more fragile.

1. To be sure, there are people that will change their minds. However, if one is playing the probabilities, the wasted energy spent trying to alter one’s thinking will vastly exceed positive results.

2. Further, who is to say that we are totally accurate in our assessment of the situation?

3. This is not to say that we never engage with others to change their minds. It’s more along the lines of weighing energy costs versus upside. Having someone change their thinking about Russian propaganda is worth the cost. Doing the same with respect to places to live or the best universities is probably not.

4. The gains are called phenotypic intelligence which results from the interaction between an improved environment and a population’s genes. Genotypic intelligence is that resulting purely from genes.

5. IQ scores are standardized so that 100 represents the mean. At certain points tests are re-standardized based on the current population. The Flynn effect compared subjects’ scores on current versus previous tests.