Comment by douche | Hacker News Reader

Comment by douche | Hacker News Reader

Beware the educated idiot.

I was working with an old carpenter friend of my father's last weekend, and he was telling me a story about a guy he apprenticed with. The man didn't complete 8th grade, and could barely do arithmetic, but was a master mason and carpenter. He was once tasked with taking apart a good-sized sawmill and reassembling it on another site; he spent a day walking through the existing plant, looking things over, without taking any notes, and then when the equipment was packed up and moved, set the whole mill back up at the new site from memory, with a healthy dash of experience to supplement.

EDIT, forgot the conclusion: Clearly, education isn't everything. It's at best a proxy for talent.

At my last job, I worked with someone who had a PhD from an elite university. This person came across as very smart, had a great smile and an easy demeanor that made friends of everyone. But I'm hard-pressed to remember a single accomplishment or even lesson learned on the job. Training was a total non-starter, just blank stares, and I'm not alone in this assessment. It's like this person was just a professional job hopper.

So is that person the idiot, or were we the idiots for falling for the act?

A little confusing because this person is clearly not an idiot.

We have all seen the educated idiot though. Big degree from fancy university we've all heard of, gets great positions without effort, produces nothing and screws up things and blames it on others. Very hard to spot from a resume, a little easier in interview phase.

Why is he an idiot? Not completing 8th grade doesn't make someone an idiot.

He is the opposite. The story is an anecdote of someone who is not well-educated, but is incredibly skilled (as opposed to someone who is very well-educated but not as skilled).

I had the same reaction to this comment as you. He says to "beware the educated idiot", then goes on to describe someone who is the opposite of that. I think we were both expecting an example of an "educated idiot". Maybe he should have said, "Keep an eye out for the uneducated genius?"

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