Razib:
“i recall the higher your IQ, the less likely you are to fall into the traps of cognitive biases and heuristics which lead you to the wrong conclusion (i think bryan caplan reports this data).”
Caplan’s point is narrow than that. I can’t pull out specifics since my copy of The Myth of the Rational Voter is out on loan at the moment, but he’s only talking about a narrow range of biases relating to the public perception of economics. I was also under the impression that Caplan’s main point was that education acts as a debiaser rather than IQ, but the key reason for biased thinking in politics was bad incentives, rather than lack of ability to make rational decisions, hence the term “rational irrationality”.
Razib: “i recall the higher your IQ, the less likely you are to fall into the traps of cognitive biases and heuristics which lead you to the wrong conclusion (i think bryan caplan reports this data).”
Caplan’s point is narrow than that. I can’t pull out specifics since my copy of The Myth of the Rational Voter is out on loan at the moment, but he’s only talking about a narrow range of biases relating to the public perception of economics. I was also under the impression that Caplan’s main point was that education acts as a debiaser rather than IQ, but the key reason for biased thinking in politics was bad incentives, rather than lack of ability to make rational decisions, hence the term “rational irrationality”.