Dumber Than You Think, Smarter Than I Think

It’s a weird sort of life when people think you’re smart. When they don’t know something, they rely on your track record of being right about things a lot of the time. When they feel they have a leg up and you don’t agree with them, then clearly you don’t have a clue.

When I was just starting school, I had to take the same sorts of multiple-guess tests that everyone else did. Actually, thought I was failing them because I kept having to take them long after everyone else in my class was through. Turns out that this was the first evidence that I tend to do well on standardized tests. It was the first bright blinking sign people used to label me as smart, but honestly, all it proved was that I was good at the particular tests they gave me. I mean, c’mon, I was only 6…how smart could I have been?

I think one of the best decisions my parents ever made about my education was to not have me skip any grades. In fact, I strongly encourage other parents faced with a similar choice to not skip grades with their children…find them the schools/teachers/classes they need to challenge them, but don’t short-change them on the opportunity to socialize.

To be fair, once you are given the smart label, the socialization has its pitfalls. Odds are you will be made fun of, you might be bullied, and you might face extortion in exchange for letting others cheat off of you. Guess what? That’s normal and that’s OK. The world isn’t always a nice place. Better to learn how to cope with that in school than have no tools for it later.

As an adult, it’s been funny. Honestly, I don’t think that I’m all that smart. So many people know so much more than I do. If I have any advantage, it’s that I’m a generalist, and as such, I do tend to have a bit more knowledge in a larger variety of subjects than your average generalist. So, while I’m not an expert at anything, I do have a large and varied assortment of tools to pick from when it comes to problem solving and analysis. Fortunately for me, that’s a pretty useful thing to have.

Where it goes wrong, as I said, is when people don’t agree with your solutions or your analysis. Now, while I make no claims to any sort of omniscience, and definitely have plenty of blemishes on my track record, the fact remains that overall I do pretty good with the figuring out of things that have a sufficient number of objective variables that a well-grounded analysis can be made.

While, like most people, I’d rather be right than wrong, I don’t really much care if I’m wrong. If I’m wrong, then I’ve learned something, which is a goodness. What I mind is when people ask me why, and I tell them why, then they tell me I’m wrong, but don’t give anything objective to back up their statement.

This happens in areas as diverse as oil geology, religion, geopolitics, and many more. It gets frustrating. And, I will admit, that it gets frustrating a lot because of so much faith-based mis-information that is out there. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in that which is greater than I; I pray every night, and I observe the holy days. But…I know the difference between things that can be tested, and things that can’t. My faith gives me comfort, but I do not try to ponder the question of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, because there is nothing sufficiently grounded in non-myth for that determination to be made.

I use the faith-myths to ground me. I like to think they connect me with the greater whole. Still, I live in a world where people’s intolerance of faiths other than their own is a source of conflict. I also live in a world where the most consistently persecuted group, by no matter what other group is in power, are the intellectuals. Oh sure, they have brief moments of glory, but often they are cast aside. Books burnings, banned research, ignored findings, gulags, and even more disturbing things happen in every culture.

Smart people are prized, at first, because they give power. Later, they are scorned because of the fear that they could take power for themselves. This, of course, flies in the face of history where the record of intellectuals actually having true power are scant, indeed. Socrates was made to commit suicide for corrupting the minds of youth, for pity’s sake. Socra-frakking-tes. Here’s what Wikipedia says about that:

Socrates came to the conclusion that while each man thought he knew a great deal and was very wise, they in fact knew very little and were not really wise at all. Socrates realized that the Oracle was correct in that while so-called wise men thought themselves wise and yet were not, he himself knew he was not wise at all which, paradoxically, made him the wiser one since he was the only person aware of his own ignorance. Socrates’ paradoxical wisdom made the prominent Athenians he publicly questioned look foolish, turning them against him and leading to accusations of wrongdoing.

See…being smart is a paradox; especially when you don’t think you’re all that smart. From my own observation I think it fair to say that I’m not as smart as others think I am, but I’m probably a little bit smarter than I think I am. Sometimes that’s a blessing, other times it’s a cup of hemlock. On balance, it’s probably a fair trade-off.

In closing, let me quickly sum up a few things: the theory of evolution is more law than not; there is a finite amount of petroleum left in the world; birds are dinosaurs; gravity is the key; neither free-markets or socialism work when unfettered; Murphy was an optimist; except for one person at either end of the spectrum, there is always someone better or worse off than you; what faith you have (for the most part) doesn’t matter, as long as you believe in something; education is about learning, not memorization; altruism doesn’t exist; as of June 2008 there are approximately 5 billion more people living than the Earth can reasonably be expected to support; opinion is not fact or news; Christie Brinkley (at 54, no less) remains way more attractive than any human has a right to expect; history does repeat itself, but never exactly; greed is not good and it doesn’t work; the greatest invention ever was the hug; fear is what governs the world; you won’t know for sure there’s an afterlife until you die and are not resuscitated; and just about everyone is smarter than me in at least one thing…and probably much more than that.