I think it’s important to stress that it’s not just that some people with an extremely high IQ fail to change their minds on certain issues, and more generally fail to overcome confirmation bias (which I think is fairly unsurprising). A key point is that there actually doesn’t appear to be much of a correlation at all between IQ and resistance to confirmation bias.
So to slightly paraphrase what you wrote above, I didn’t just write the post because a correlation across a population is of limited relevance when you’re dealing with a smart individual who lacks one of these traits, but also because for a number of these traits (e.g. interpersonal kindness, being driven, and limiting confirmation bias), there seems to be virtually no correlation in the first place. And also because these other skills likely are more easy to improve than is IQ, implying that there is a tractability case for focusing more on developing and incentivizing these other traits.
I think the studies you refer to may underrate the importance of IQ for good epistemics.
First, as I mentioned in my other comment, the correlation between IQ-like measures and the most comprehensive test of rationality was as high as 0.695. This is especially noteworthy considering the fact that Stanovich in particular (I haven’t followed the others’ work) has for a long time argued along your lines—that there are many things that IQ tests miss. So if anything one would expect him to be biased in the direction of a too low correlation.
Second, psychological studies of confirmation bias and other biases tend to study participants’ reactions to short vignettes. They don’t follow participants over longer periods of time. And I think this may lead them to underrate the importance of intelligence for good epistemics; in particular in communities like the effective altruism and rationalist communities.
I think that people can to some extent (though certainly not fully) overcome conformation bias and other biases through being alert to them (not the least in interpersonal discussions), through forming better mental habits, through building better epistemic institutions, and so on. This work is, however, quite cognitively demanding, and I would expect more intelligent people to be substantially better at it. Less intelligent people are likely not as good as engaging in the kind of reflection on their own and others’ thought-processes to get these kinds of efforts off the ground. I think that the effective altruist and rationalist communities are unusually good at it: they are constantly on the lookout for biased reasoning, and often engage in meta-discussions about their own and each others’ reasoning—whether they, e.g. show signs of confirmation bias. And I think a big reason why that works so well is that these communities are comprised by so many intelligent people.
In general, I think that IQ is tremendously important and not overrated by effective altruists.
I think it’s important to stress that it’s not just that some people with an extremely high IQ fail to change their minds on certain issues, and more generally fail to overcome confirmation bias (which I think is fairly unsurprising). A key point is that there actually doesn’t appear to be much of a correlation at all between IQ and resistance to confirmation bias.
So to slightly paraphrase what you wrote above, I didn’t just write the post because a correlation across a population is of limited relevance when you’re dealing with a smart individual who lacks one of these traits, but also because for a number of these traits (e.g. interpersonal kindness, being driven, and limiting confirmation bias), there seems to be virtually no correlation in the first place. And also because these other skills likely are more easy to improve than is IQ, implying that there is a tractability case for focusing more on developing and incentivizing these other traits.
I think the studies you refer to may underrate the importance of IQ for good epistemics.
First, as I mentioned in my other comment, the correlation between IQ-like measures and the most comprehensive test of rationality was as high as 0.695. This is especially noteworthy considering the fact that Stanovich in particular (I haven’t followed the others’ work) has for a long time argued along your lines—that there are many things that IQ tests miss. So if anything one would expect him to be biased in the direction of a too low correlation.
Second, psychological studies of confirmation bias and other biases tend to study participants’ reactions to short vignettes. They don’t follow participants over longer periods of time. And I think this may lead them to underrate the importance of intelligence for good epistemics; in particular in communities like the effective altruism and rationalist communities.
I think that people can to some extent (though certainly not fully) overcome conformation bias and other biases through being alert to them (not the least in interpersonal discussions), through forming better mental habits, through building better epistemic institutions, and so on. This work is, however, quite cognitively demanding, and I would expect more intelligent people to be substantially better at it. Less intelligent people are likely not as good as engaging in the kind of reflection on their own and others’ thought-processes to get these kinds of efforts off the ground. I think that the effective altruist and rationalist communities are unusually good at it: they are constantly on the lookout for biased reasoning, and often engage in meta-discussions about their own and each others’ reasoning—whether they, e.g. show signs of confirmation bias. And I think a big reason why that works so well is that these communities are comprised by so many intelligent people.
In general, I think that IQ is tremendously important and not overrated by effective altruists.