The outside view is very good to apply, especially in this case where there hasn’t been much independent validation and lots of opportunity for confirmation bias. However, I would and do generally trust the assessment someone else makes about the intelligence of someone else. (With the exception of any assessments based on politics or tribe affiliation.) I guess I agree with the OP that intelligence is fairly straightforward to estimate with secondary signals.
I’m not familiar with any charlatans or scammers being successful by pretending to be smarter than they were. People pretending to be smarter than they are, are usually pretty transparent. I suspect this is just availability bias, though, do you have any examples in mind?
I’m not familiar with any charlatans or scammers being successful by pretending to be smarter than they were. People pretending to be smarter than they are, are usually pretty transparent.
They are if you’re smarter then they really are.
I suspect this is just availability bias, though, do you have any examples in mind?
Well, there’s Yvain’s tale of how he was almost convinced by Velikovsky’s pseudohistory.
It seems you are using ‘seeming smart’ as interchangeable with ‘convincing’ or ‘persuasive’?
However, these are quite independent. Someone can easily convince me of something, without my thinking they are more intelligent than I am, and without convincing me that they are more intelligent than they are.
Consider a ‘smooth talker’. I think people generally recognize that these smooth-talkers are more likable and persuasive on any topic, but there is no necessary correlation with having a higher IQ. In fiction, there are extreme examples like Forest Gump (low IQ, very smooth) and innumerable moderate examples like Peter Venkman in Ghostbusters. Whereas intelligent characters are often portrayed, though not always, as not very persuasive.
...Smooth-talkers and scammers will often break-down defenses by signaling equal intelligence when they actually have higher intelligence.
In the example you gave, how do we know Velikovsky wasn’t very intelligent? (We do know he had the ability to write very well, to make a false history seem true.) My question isn’t that he is or wasn’t intelligent, but whether his deception of Yvain was due to Yvain over-estimating his intelligence.
..Can you think of an example (a fictional one might be easiest) where a deception (or even any conflict) was actually about someone overestimating someone’s intelligence?
Can you think of an example (a fictional one might be easiest) where a deception (or even any conflict) was actually about someone overestimating someone’s intelligence?
The outside view is very good to apply, especially in this case where there hasn’t been much independent validation and lots of opportunity for confirmation bias. However, I would and do generally trust the assessment someone else makes about the intelligence of someone else. (With the exception of any assessments based on politics or tribe affiliation.) I guess I agree with the OP that intelligence is fairly straightforward to estimate with secondary signals.
I’m not familiar with any charlatans or scammers being successful by pretending to be smarter than they were. People pretending to be smarter than they are, are usually pretty transparent. I suspect this is just availability bias, though, do you have any examples in mind?
They are if you’re smarter then they really are.
Well, there’s Yvain’s tale of how he was almost convinced by Velikovsky’s pseudohistory.
It seems you are using ‘seeming smart’ as interchangeable with ‘convincing’ or ‘persuasive’?
However, these are quite independent. Someone can easily convince me of something, without my thinking they are more intelligent than I am, and without convincing me that they are more intelligent than they are.
Consider a ‘smooth talker’. I think people generally recognize that these smooth-talkers are more likable and persuasive on any topic, but there is no necessary correlation with having a higher IQ. In fiction, there are extreme examples like Forest Gump (low IQ, very smooth) and innumerable moderate examples like Peter Venkman in Ghostbusters. Whereas intelligent characters are often portrayed, though not always, as not very persuasive.
...Smooth-talkers and scammers will often break-down defenses by signaling equal intelligence when they actually have higher intelligence.
In the example you gave, how do we know Velikovsky wasn’t very intelligent? (We do know he had the ability to write very well, to make a false history seem true.) My question isn’t that he is or wasn’t intelligent, but whether his deception of Yvain was due to Yvain over-estimating his intelligence.
..Can you think of an example (a fictional one might be easiest) where a deception (or even any conflict) was actually about someone overestimating someone’s intelligence?
Well, there are entire tropes about this.
I though the cartoon was a good example. The tiger convinced the boy that he was smarter than he actually was, with smooth talking.