Ask HN: Are people only smart until they talk about things you know more about?
Hey, all.
Have you ever noticed people who you regarded as smart/intelligent, show themselves not to be that smart when they talk about something you know a lot about?
Say, you come to Hackernews/Reddit and usually see people on these sites as knowledgeable people. But when they talk about a topic you know very well, you realize they aren't that smart.
And, if this happens to the topics you know a lot about, what about the other topics you don't know much about? Are they wrong about those too?
So my question is: is there a name for this "effect", that you "lose trust" on someone you regarded as knowledgeable when they talked about something you know well?
70 comments
[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 136 ms ] thread> “Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Crichton#Speeches)
To what extent you think this should affect our trust on news sources/websites like Hackernews?
Safer and easier way: don't trust anything.
When you see this situation, ask yourself "why is this person wrong? why are they so confident in their opinion?" Often its because we think we know more than we actually do, we believed the things we read without bothering to give them the basic smell test for rationality. Where someone involved in the area has had exposure to the basic realities the readable sources do no or cannot impart.
Computer folks are especially subject to this error, I think, because all of our work is essentially readable, all the knowledge is communicable via text, and almost all the "rules" were created by human design that intended rational ends, even when it missed.
Carpenters by contrast get early and unavoidable lessons in the perversity and stubbornness of the real world, the effects of entrapped tradition, and the occasional need for black magic and blood sacrifice to get the job done.
This doesn't make them any less predisposed to error than the computer scientist in areas outside their competence, but it informs the shape of the errors they make.
Before even trying to assess the accuracy of a story, I have to take a step back and assess the competence of the source. Read some other stuff they've written. Is any of it on matters I'm well-acquainted with? Do they seem fuzzy on basic facts, or have clear and cogent explanations? Does any of it open my eyes to new perspectives even on things I thought I knew? Is the new story in a field they seem to have competence in?
Then, I look at the facts presented in the story in question. Assume I don't have my own sources for the facts, but I can look at how they're presented: Are they clearly explained and sourced? Do they have the logic wrapped in a lot of inverting layers (judge blocks appeal of injunction against measure that would've prohibited another activity, wait what? is that a green light or a red for the activity?) which they successfully unwrap for the reader, or are we left to fend for ourselves? Can I take some of the named sources and go look at their own writings and see if they're being quoted accurately?
Then I look at the emotional language surrounding the factual statements. Do they seem to have a horse in this race and incentive to push one side, or is their opinion merely a product of being informed about it? (I'm willing to accept that researching a story naturally produces an emotional narrative, and conveying that can be an important part of context, but the facts should shape the narrative, not the other way around.) Is there enough information that I can imagine the other perspectives that might surround these facts? Do I want to go dig some up?
This may be part of the rub: there are a bunch of bullshitters on the internet.
However to your point, Michael Crichton describes the rather sad "Gell-Mann amnesia effect": One tends to still trust the other pages of the magazine.
Let’s take an example: If I want to know what’s going on in Yemen this week, I’m probably better of reading The Economist than borrowing a book at the library. But if I want to get a deeper understanding on the situation in Yemen, I’m probably better off reading a book rather than a news article.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.
We all sometimes have a tendency to talk about the things we know jack about while posing as experts because we read an article in the Guardian about it once, or an abstract from a paper. Some more than others.
In the world of show business and television, I’ve seen celebrities — singers, stand up comedians, those kinds of people — often being asked about their stance on complicated political issues or life advice as such — and they spoke bullshit with a mild air of authority instead of running away, which a sensible person should have done. The thing, though, is, that the fact they are celebrities means there are crowds of fans who will listen to whatever they say as if it was God’s own truth.
Hey, you can treat what I just wrote as uninformed bullshit, likely you even have reasons to, like data to contradict my statements. It’s ok. I’m likely a fool.
I think often they're asked because they've expressed interest in a topic or cause, and they realize that any benefit their name and the exposure they have at the moment is wasted if they ignore questions about it.
That they misstep is probably no different than any fledgling PR person the first day on the job, and sometimes I don't doubt it's media baiting them with questions to expose their lack of knowledge of some areas of the topic, as it makes for good coverage.
A lot of the times I give celebrities a lot of leeway in their knowledge, because most the time it's obvious that they just want to help because they feel fortunate for their current situation and want to give back. Sometimes that seems to be misapplied because of their lack of deep understanding on the topic, but at least their hearts seem to be in a good place.
It’s likely worse with celebrities who are generally smart and well-read on a wide range of subjects, who think that because they think they know a thing or two, that they should bestow their pearls of knowledge upon their audience.
The reality, though, is that they are in fact an illustration of the popular understanding of the Dunning-Kruger effect, because they don’t know how much they don’t know, sometimes even after a demonstration of the contrary.
I know about at least one such person who gave very thoughtful interviews on politics and blogged opinions and how he knew how to put things right, ran for a seat in the parliament twice, actually got elected both times, and failed miserably at his job both times, ending his mandate prematurely.
> the popular understanding of the Dunning-Kruger effect
You had me (my upvote) at hello (the acknowledgement of the popular misunderstanding). ;)
We are all fools on many topics, most topics. One of my mentors in the past used to say there was no substitute for experience in an area. If you were joining a project and the members had a head start you should listen and learn because their experience was way ahead of your opinions on how it could be done.
Why not participate in the norm of stating the source of your claims. It's easy enough to start a sentence with "I read in the Guardian" or "If I remember correctly" or "I heard from a professor once".
It even helps just to share your credence in your claim, e.g. "I suspect this is true", or "I'm pretty sure this is how something works".
In the historical academic and intellectual epicenter of the US (East Coast college towns), the rule about not talking about a subject in which you are not an expert is still somewhat followed.
It is completely shattered in SV and coastal cities + DC
Case in point:
"Zero cases by the end of April, bruh...you gotta stop panicking bruh!" [0] AKA, the reason why Boston can't stand Elon Musk.
[0] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1240754657263144960?lang...
As in: in academia if you say something, people are trained to analyze the veracity of that, and to judge you based on your methodological/academic rigor. Meanwhile, in SV people judge you on past projects and financial conditions, which are not tied to knowledge about reality at all. I don’t know if any of what I am saying is factually correct, I’m just guessing and wondering. Don’t take it as fact, just my biased, un-founded opinion created around what I see online.
When the science is knocking on heavens door after years or decades of struggles they feel the opportunity of commercial success and come out of the woodwork to make the last effort to finally push the pile over the goal line by making adjustments in how human capital and financial capital are deployed.
Or, to put it the other way, stupidity and ignorance are two separate things. All of us are ignorant of more things than we're knowledgeable about -- even the geniuses among us.
Get a really smart person to talk about something that they have little special knowledge about, and they aren't going to seem any smarter about it than most other people.
https://fs.blog/2013/12/circle-of-competence/
It’s when it comes to other topics that we wildly diverge in conclusions.
Smart is only capacity for noticing and understanding new things. It does not mean the person has presently a lot of understanding of things (knowledge) or that it has good judgment to not say untrue things in area they have no idea about (wisdom).
A person that is smart but has little knowledge will not be able to keep up in discussion with you in your area of expertise even if they are actually more intelligent than you.
Give them some time and see if they can pick up things fast or are slow to understand new concepts. This is better way to judge if somebody is or is not smart.
**
Imagine following situation: you are talking about something you know a lot about with a person that has no knowledge in your field of expertise.
That person decides to learn your field.
Let's say, in 2 years they know more in your field than you will ever know and they even are able to get a lot of original insight that leads to some astounding accomplishments.
Ask yourself, was that person "not smart" when you first talked to him/her? Or maybe they were always smart but they still needed to invest at least some time and effort to learn the field?
Unfortunately, this kind of humility/modesty is not rewarded. As we see in the world around us.
Often, on HN and Reddit, the most confident or authoritative sounding statements are also the most wrong. It always baffles me just how confident people can be in themselves when they really have no good basis for that confidence.
I think part of the problem is that we collectively tend to reward the "confident sounding" comments because we wrongly assume that only an actually knowledgeable person would have authored them.
"The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt" — from The Triumph of Stupidity, 1933.
2. People usually have a lot of shallow knowledge on many things but deep knowledge on very few (if at all)
3. Many things are complicated enough that shallow knowledge==wrong knowledge from an expect point of view (the same way high school physics usually don't have friction, you sacrifice correctness for simplicity)
Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.
https://www.epsilontheory.com/gell-mann-amnesia/