Manipulative Intelligence

Evolutionary Psychologist Diane Fleischman, in an article titled “The Dark Side of Smart”:

Human intelligence is incredibly useful but it doesn’t safeguard you against having false beliefs, because that’s not what intelligence is for. Intelligence is associated with coming up with more convincing bullshit and with being a better liar, but not associated with a better ability to recognizeone’s own bias. Unfortunately, intelligence has very little influence on your ability to rationally evaluate your own beliefs, or undermine what’s called “myside bias.”

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Erich Vieth

Erich Vieth is an attorney focusing on civil rights (including First Amendment), consumer law litigation and appellate practice. At this website often writes about censorship, corporate news media corruption and cognitive science. He is also a working musician, artist and a writer, having founded Dangerous Intersection in 2006. Erich lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his two daughters.

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  1. Avatar of Bill Heath
    Bill Heath

    The article appears to ignore the adaptive ability as an indicator of intelligence. Adaptive ability alerts us to when our beliefs no longer are enabling, rather stray into disabling territory. As an example, relationship cultures founder in contact with modern technology. The relationship between the air traffic controller and the pilot is irrelevant to the successful simultaneous use of intersecting runways. Thus, an ability to adapt one’s beliefs to changed circumstances supports not only survival and reproduction, but other beneficial goals as well.

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