Smart People Believe Weird Things

[Joel]

Why are well educated people almost equally inclined to believe in pseudo-science as everyone else? Or are they?

Education by itself is no paranormal prophylactic. Although belief in ESP decreased from 65 percent among high school graduates to 60 percent among college graduates, and belief in magnetic therapy dropped from 71 percent among high school graduates to 55 percent among college graduates, that still leaves more than half fully endorsing such claims! And for embracing alternative medicine, the percentages actually increase, from 89 percent for high school grads to 92 percent for college grads.

- Smart People Believe in Weird Things, Scientific America

I hope this hasn't already been discussed back in 2002!

Ps. A teaser from the article:

Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for nonsmart reasons.

 

[Evo]

Education, intelligence and common sense don't go hand in hand. More education doesn't automatically equal more intelligence, especially if you are just looking at the difference between high school and college. I wouldn't normally consider someone with a degree from the local strip mall college (classes next door to the 7-11) as being more intelligent.

 

[Moonbear]

Not to mention that if those college graduates got their degrees in English, or Art History, or Music Performance, or Business, etc., none of those require any more knowledge about science than what they came out of high school with.

 

[polyb]

You heard it from the two most attractive and intelligent ladies on the forum! Just because one has an 'education' does not mean one has 'smarts'. There are many different kinds of 'intelligence' that one cannot acquire through an academic education and it does not take a lot of work or observation to conclude this. I know many people who did not goto college that have more sensibility about life than those who did. I consider them to be unrecognized and therefore unaccredited. I have also known many who did have a college education and could not tie their shoe laces. I consider them to be 'brilliant idiots'. There is nothing more idiotic than a person who thinks they are smart, cultivates an arrogance because of that, and then does something really stupid. C'est la vie!

Personally, I think the conerstone of any education should be the Socratic method. It is from this ingenous method that one can begin to cultivate 'intelligence' in it's many varied forms! Without it you are more vulnerable to be lead astray and taken for a sucker.

 

[Evo]

You heard it from the two most attractive and intelligent ladies on the forum!

polyb has just demonstrated wisdom, common sense and intelligence, with just the right amount of sucking up.

 

[jcsd]

Ermm, smart people? The survey questioned AMERICANS

 

[polyb]

polyb has just demonstrated wisdom, common sense and intelligence, with just the right amount of sucking up.

Anything for the ladies!

-anything within reason of course!

 

[Bladibla]

Ermm, smart people? The survey questioned AMERICANS

Hey, Americans cultivated lots of geniuses as well.. so don't prejudice them like that.


So would you say, people of the PF, that these intelligible people are naturally occurring without (or with just some) artificial education are instantly noticeable when you talk to them?

Just curious..

 

[jcsd]

Hey, Americans cultivated lots of geniuses as well.. so don't prejudice them like that.

Yes a country where Jessica Simspon has a viable recording career is liable to be choc full of geniuses isn't it

 

[Bladibla]

Yes a country where Jessica Simspon has a viable recording career is liable to be choc full of geniuses isn't it

..But its also a country where geniuses like Richard Feynman have been produced

 

[jcsd]

REichard Feynman was from New York, not America, besides which most of the stuff he discoverd I knew already.

 

[Evo]

REichard Feynman was from New York, not America, besides which most of the stuff he discoverd I knew already.

 

[Bladibla]

...

Sorry. troll

 

[Bartholomew]

Alternative medicine does work. Never understimate the power of a placebo.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The references given lend more to having opinions based on little to no information rather than being well considered opinions. It probably speaks more to expectations rather than actual opinions. Also, an education in physics, for example, teaches one that the universe is a very strange place. One can't help but become open to greater possibilities than the otherwise common and outdated Newtonian mindset would allow.

 

[marlon]

REichard Feynman was from New York, not America, besides which most of the stuff he discoverd I knew already.

Them guys who discovered the asymptotic freedom are also americans, however i knew this principle like a 100 years ago



only Einstein's work was new to me...

marlon, the humble european

 

[Joel]

I can agree with pretty much everything, except that little detail about humbleness there somewhere...

What I thought of was something on the line of MB and Ivan. Maybe you generally learn of all kinds of things and fail to realize why you 'know' them? Maybe a little more philosophy of science could do well for all college students, including physics majors. It's also good to know what you can't know.

But how do you have time to teach high-school students or non-physics majors about the non-Newtonian foundation of natural phenomena? That's something I've been pondering on. Will they just have to believe it?