Huh, I would have taken nearly all of the qualities listed here as a reason to prioritize “smarts”, because they seem so correlated with “smarts” to me (exceptions: being driven, interpersonal kindness and respect). Like, if I generate examples of people who are high on the skills listed here, they tend to be among the smartest people I know; and if I generate examples of smart people, each example seems to have many but not all of these qualities.
If I were listing useful-to-EA qualities that were reasons to think less about “smarts”, I would include:
Mental stamina (i.e. can you do 10 hours of focused work a day? I get the sense that a few rare people can, and it’s not that related to how smart they are)
Thanks for your comment and for listing those traits and skills; I strongly agree that those are all useful qualities. :)
One might argue that willingness to do grunt work, taking initiative, and mental stamina all belong in a broader “drive/conscientiousness” category, but I think they are in any case important and meaningfully distinct traits worth highlighting in their own right.
Likewise, one could perhaps argue that “ability to network well” falls under a broader category of “social skills”, in which interpersonal kindness and respect might also be said to fall (as a somewhat distinct trait or ability, cf. the cognitive vs. affective empathy distinction; networking ability probably draws more strongly on cognitive empathy while [genuine] interpersonal kindness probably relies more on affective empathy). A related trait one could list in that category is skill in perspective-taking.
Regarding the correlation point, I agree that IQ is likely correlated with many of the traits I listed, but I don’t believe that this is a strong reason to think that we are not overemphasizing IQ relative to these other traits. Moreover, as noted in another comment, a reason to focus more on these other traits relative to IQ at the level of what we seek to develop individually and incentivize collectively is that many of these other traits and skills probably are more elastic and improvable than is IQ.
As for how many of these traits are correlated significantly with IQ, it’s worth noting that — beyond “being driven” and “interpersonal kindness” — myside bias (also) appears to show “very little relation to intelligence”. And I likewise doubt that IQ has much of a correlation with a willingness to face unpleasant and inconvenient conclusions, or resistance to signaling-related distortions. (Some relevant albeit weak and indirect evidence regarding IQ and signaling-related distortions — specifically when it comes to distortions due to partisan/tribal loyalties — is that greater knowledge of political matters, which is presumably a decent proxy of IQ, does not seem to improve people’s ability to provide an accurate representation of the opposite side’s views, even when subjects are given a financial incentive.)
I think you have to be smart to have all the OP’s listed traits, so sure, there’s going to be correlation. But what’s the phrase? “Science advances one funeral at a time.” If that’s true, then there are plenty of geniuses who can’t bring themselves to admit when someone else has a better theory. That would show that traits 2 and 3 are commonly lacking in smart people, which yes, makes those people dumber than they otherwise would be, but they’re still smart.
“Science advances one funeral at a time.” If that’s true,
If that were literally true, then science wouldn’t ever advance much. :)
It seems that most scientists are in fact willing to change their minds when strong evidence has been provided for a hypothesis that goes against the previously accepted view. The “Planck principle” seems more applicable to scientists who are strongly invested in a given hypothesis, but even in that reference class, I suspect that most scientists do actually change their minds during their lifetime when the evidence is strong. And even if that were not the case, I don’t think it would count as compelling evidence in favor of thinking that IQ isn’t strongly correlated with less confirmation bias. (E.g. non-scientists might still do far worse.)
I think stronger evidence for a weak or non-existent correlation between IQ and resistance to confirmation bias is found in the psychological studies on the matter. :)
The “Planck principle” seems more applicable to scientists who are strongly invested in a given hypothesis
Yep, that’s why I referred to your 2nd and 3rd traits: A better competing theory is only an inconvenient conclusion if you’re invested in the wrong theory (especially if you yourself created that theory).
I know IQ and these traits are probably correlated (again, since some level intelligence is a prerequisite for most of the traits). But I’m assuming the reason you wrote the post is that a correlation across a population isn’t relevant when you’re dealing with a smart individual who lacks one of these traits.
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.
Huh, I would have taken nearly all of the qualities listed here as a reason to prioritize “smarts”, because they seem so correlated with “smarts” to me (exceptions: being driven, interpersonal kindness and respect). Like, if I generate examples of people who are high on the skills listed here, they tend to be among the smartest people I know; and if I generate examples of smart people, each example seems to have many but not all of these qualities.
If I were listing useful-to-EA qualities that were reasons to think less about “smarts”, I would include:
Willingness to do “grunt work”
Ability to network well, including with non-EAs
Taking initiative (see micro-entrepreneurship)
Mental stamina (i.e. can you do 10 hours of focused work a day? I get the sense that a few rare people can, and it’s not that related to how smart they are)
Thanks for your comment and for listing those traits and skills; I strongly agree that those are all useful qualities. :)
One might argue that willingness to do grunt work, taking initiative, and mental stamina all belong in a broader “drive/conscientiousness” category, but I think they are in any case important and meaningfully distinct traits worth highlighting in their own right.
Likewise, one could perhaps argue that “ability to network well” falls under a broader category of “social skills”, in which interpersonal kindness and respect might also be said to fall (as a somewhat distinct trait or ability, cf. the cognitive vs. affective empathy distinction; networking ability probably draws more strongly on cognitive empathy while [genuine] interpersonal kindness probably relies more on affective empathy). A related trait one could list in that category is skill in perspective-taking.
Regarding the correlation point, I agree that IQ is likely correlated with many of the traits I listed, but I don’t believe that this is a strong reason to think that we are not overemphasizing IQ relative to these other traits. Moreover, as noted in another comment, a reason to focus more on these other traits relative to IQ at the level of what we seek to develop individually and incentivize collectively is that many of these other traits and skills probably are more elastic and improvable than is IQ.
As for how many of these traits are correlated significantly with IQ, it’s worth noting that — beyond “being driven” and “interpersonal kindness” — myside bias (also) appears to show “very little relation to intelligence”. And I likewise doubt that IQ has much of a correlation with a willingness to face unpleasant and inconvenient conclusions, or resistance to signaling-related distortions. (Some relevant albeit weak and indirect evidence regarding IQ and signaling-related distortions — specifically when it comes to distortions due to partisan/tribal loyalties — is that greater knowledge of political matters, which is presumably a decent proxy of IQ, does not seem to improve people’s ability to provide an accurate representation of the opposite side’s views, even when subjects are given a financial incentive.)
I think you have to be smart to have all the OP’s listed traits, so sure, there’s going to be correlation. But what’s the phrase? “Science advances one funeral at a time.” If that’s true, then there are plenty of geniuses who can’t bring themselves to admit when someone else has a better theory. That would show that traits 2 and 3 are commonly lacking in smart people, which yes, makes those people dumber than they otherwise would be, but they’re still smart.
If that were literally true, then science wouldn’t ever advance much. :)
It seems that most scientists are in fact willing to change their minds when strong evidence has been provided for a hypothesis that goes against the previously accepted view. The “Planck principle” seems more applicable to scientists who are strongly invested in a given hypothesis, but even in that reference class, I suspect that most scientists do actually change their minds during their lifetime when the evidence is strong. And even if that were not the case, I don’t think it would count as compelling evidence in favor of thinking that IQ isn’t strongly correlated with less confirmation bias. (E.g. non-scientists might still do far worse.)
I think stronger evidence for a weak or non-existent correlation between IQ and resistance to confirmation bias is found in the psychological studies on the matter. :)
Yep, that’s why I referred to your 2nd and 3rd traits: A better competing theory is only an inconvenient conclusion if you’re invested in the wrong theory (especially if you yourself created that theory).
I know IQ and these traits are probably correlated (again, since some level intelligence is a prerequisite for most of the traits). But I’m assuming the reason you wrote the post is that a correlation across a population isn’t relevant when you’re dealing with a smart individual who lacks one of these traits.
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.