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Comment by icelancer | Hacker News Reader

>> The short answer is her Jobs-like "reality distortion field" -- she was exceedingly good at convincing non-scientists that their science worked.

This confuses a lot of people (not saying you are one of them), but this is really common in intelligent non-experts. People vastly overestimate how intelligent they are when they place value on their intelligence; in other words, they like thinking they are smart.

When they prize their own intelligence, they have false confidence about areas they have zero expertise in, purely because they feel they can figure it out.

So all it takes is someone with sociopathic tendencies and who has extreme confidence with a good CV, and bam, they're willing to go to the mat for that person. Holmes is one example but certainly not the only one.

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> ...they have false confidence about areas they have zero expertise in, purely because they feel they can figure it out.

The antidote to this effect: pick any object around you, and set out to make it yourself from scratch. Or just set out to make the precursors. An object as prosaic as say, a window. A lot of people who suffer from this effect dismissively wave away such a challenge, saying in more words that it's beneath them to attempt because it is so pedestrian, or of course they could do it, but they don't have the time to.

Those I know who are scary smart, are the ones who will more frequently pick up the challenge, and boy, are they fast at picking up what they need to know to meet the challenge.

Me, I just feel dumb every day, but have a heck of a lot of fun along the way. I also stick to far less lofty aims. A few months ago I had never owned a chainsaw before, and a few weeks ago I processed half a cord of firewood with a chainsaw, maul, wedge and sledgehammer into smaller chunks for my smoker. I respect the hell out of the woodsmen who walk into the mountain forest for a full day of work with nary but a milk crate of supplies and those machines, and the experience makes me appreciate just how vast an efficieny improvement they represent over hand sawing.

Dirty jobs man.

An object as prosaic as say, a window

I think about this alot, starting from absolutely nothing I doubt I could even make a nail, let alone a screw, let alone a nut and bolt. I have no idea what iron ore looks like in the wild or where to find it. I could probably make charcoal and a furnace... if I had the tools, which I wouldn’t. It’s quite humbling.

> It’s quite humbling.

I didn't want to get all management-consultant-preachy earlier, but you touched upon why I persistently perform that exercise. I believe there is a very valuable leadership lesson imparted by continuously performing that exercise first-hand. Too often leadership devolves into management, especially when people lose sight of just how fractally difficult many human endeavors are. The humility helps teach me perspective on problems and people.

That Australian aboriginal might live a dramatically different life than "developed world" citizens, but there is no way I can be convinced that on average, they aren't as smart.

You might find this interesting: https://www.ted.com/talks/thomas_thwaites_how_i_built_a_toas...

What if I say making a window is a giant pain in the ass and I'm not set up for handling molten glass in that scale. I might could pull off a bottle or glass with the right equipment and a few hundred hours of training and practice. Is that reasonable? And yes I'd be buying tools and raw glass, not sourcing sand and blowing my own fire brick or making my own kanthal wire from scratch.

That's why, when you read the memoirs of conmen, they always say educated, intelligent people are the easiest to rip off.

Funny, the PhD taught me to keep what I say fairly limited. On the other hand, I find generalists will say all kinds of crap that "sounds true" but they have at best a weak theory and a couple of anecdotes.

You seem to be making an argument for a weak theory with a couple of anecdotes.

Op is replying to anecdotes with anecdotes.

There is something kind of meta there, isn't there? ;)

I don't doubt that that's true, but it's also educated, intelligent people who are more likely to have the kind of money that makes them targets for con men.

They always say that because it sounds a lot better, and they have no problem with lying.

Can't find the cite at the moment, but I recall that cult members were also likely to be college grads and of above-average intelligence

> People vastly overestimate how intelligent they are when they place value on their intelligence;

Even if they don't, intelligence does not replace domain knowledge.

>>When they prize their own intelligence, they have false confidence about areas they have zero expertise in, purely because they feel they can figure it out.

I wonder how this squares with the Dunning-Kruger effect. Are domain-stupid generally intelligent people more susceptible than domain-stupid generally stupid people if they are equally cocky?

Is there a name for this cognitive bias?

Subclass of Illusory superiority.

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