The intelligence trap: why smarter people make the most serious mistakes

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The day he was diagnosed with a strange pancreatic cancer, Steve Jobs, then president of Apple, sent an email to all his employees to reassure them. "I have a very rare form of cancer called neuroendocrine tumor," the email said. "It can be cured if it is removed surgically after being diagnosed in time." Seven years later he died.

His official biographer, Walter Isaacson , then revealed that during nine months of 2004, Jobs, one of the great geniuses of the twentieth century, had refused surgery because the intervention was too "invasive" and had decided instead to treat the disease with acupuncture sessions, spiritualists and natural juices.

"How could such a smart man do something so stupid?" Isaacson was asked one night on CBS. "He believed that if you ignore something, if you don't want something to exist, there is a magical thought that eliminates it."

In Spanish there is an expression, very motherly, that would summarize the situation: "As smart as you are, Steve, you seem silly."

Technically, Jobs was a victim of the so-called intelligence trap . "It is a pattern of attitudes and behaviors that leads trained and intelligent people to act stupidly because of their intellectual capacity and not in spite of it," explains the English journalist David Robson, a specialist in neuroscience and psychology and author of a essay that arrives tomorrow in Spain under the title The intelligence trap: why intelligent people do nonsense and how to avoid it (Paidós editorial).

His book, which functions as a kind of survival manual for brilliant minds (with a "stupidity detection kit" included), not only picks up the magufadas of the creator of the iPhone. There is a long list of what we could call - sorry - ready for the boat. For example, Arthur Conan Doyle , a medical doctor and brilliant author of Sherlock Holmes , believed in fairies and went to a medium five or six times a week. Kary Mullis , Nobel Prize in Chemistry, denied the existence of the AIDS virus and climate change although he defended astral travel and was convinced that he had been abducted by aliens. Biochemist Linus Pauling , also a Nobel Prize, spent years ensuring that vitamin supplements cured cancer. And Thomas Edison was determined, after manufacturing the first electric bulb, to campaign against alternating current because he believed that direct current had a future.

From left to right: Linus Pauling, Steve Jobs and Kary Mullis.

Even Albert Einstein , father of the theory of relativity and face of intelligence par excellence, lost his mind in the last years of his career trying to prove without success the great theory of the unification of the laws of Physics, to such an extent that His colleagues were ashamed to cross him through the halls of the campus. "His famous intuition derailed him, turning him blind and deaf to anything that contradicted his theories," writes Robson.

"The smartest and most trained people tend to think they know everything there is to know about a subject and find it difficult to recognize the gaps in their knowledge," explains the English journalist to Papel . "They believe themselves with the license to ignore evidence that questions their views, which leads them to have a more closed mind, and use their intellectual capacity to justify their opinions, even if they are demonstrably wrong."

-Molière said that «an enlightened fool is foolier than an ignorant fool». Which of the two is more dangerous for society: the one who is completely stupid or the one who is so intelligent that he deceives himself?

-I don't want my book to be considered an anti-intellectual allegation or that it was understood that ignorance is somehow preferable to education. What I do believe is that we need a greater recognition that even the brightest people are capable of making mistakes and when they do, being in positions of greater responsibility, the consequences are incredibly serious.

David Robson imagines a car to explain his theory. Our brain would be the engine, the raw power. «A more powerful engine takes you further and faster. But you also need other equipment, ”he explains. «You need brakes, direction and a GPS to follow the correct route. Otherwise, it could end up on a cliff.

The smartest people tend to think they know everything and find it difficult to recognize the gaps in their knowledge

To analyze all those intelligences that just crashed, the philosopher, writer and educator José Antonio Marina wrote in 2004 Intelligence failed. Theory and practice of stupidity , a book in which he differentiated the concept of intelligence as a series of competences that could be measured and the use made of them. Marina recalls the experience of a first-year high school student, widely applied in studies and with an IQ of 150, who eventually became the head of a drug trafficking band. «This boy is 26 years old today and is in jail. Is he smart or stupid? ”Asks the professor now. “He is intelligent but his use of his intelligence was really stupid. Human intelligence needs to have information, handle it well, manage emotions, and exercise the virtues of action: perseverance, flexibility, resistance to frustration, goal selection ... All that is intelligence and not what They measure the tests ».

Canadian psychologist Keith Stanovich was one of the first to underline the differences between rationality and the IQ test.

From left to right: Paul Frampton, Arthur Conan Doyle and Thomas Edison.

From the analysis of the university entrance exams, he observed that people with higher grades had more than others what he called "a blind spot prejudice . " That is, they were unable to see their own flaws and were guided by their instincts. Just like Steve Jobs curing pancreatic cancer with papaya juices.

Robson's essay now attributes to this bias not only countless individual errors, but also some of the worst man-made disasters in recent times, since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion in 2010 to the Columbia space shuttle disaster in 2003 or the accident of the Concorde in 2000.

"When the intelligence trap passes from the individual level to group management the problem is even greater," the English journalist warns. “Whether to achieve greater productivity or as a result of arrogance, many companies discourage critical thinking and punish employees who raise questions . And we know that an unquestionable and criticism-free posture can be a huge source of errors. This phenomenon is known as functional stupidity : to look for a short-term performance, potential risks that could have serious consequences are overlooked.

Today, humility is seen as a feature of weakness. Politicians are very criticized if they doubt, if they change their mind on a subject

Let's see another example. In 2007 the Nokia phone company had almost half of the market share worldwide. Six years later, most of his clients already had an iPhone. Nokia engineers were among the best in the world, however they were never allowed to question the company's methods. “The general level of experience and knowledge in the company was enormous, but they did not apply their collective intelligence effectively. The intelligence trap is due to the inability to imagine an alternative view of the world in which our decisions are not correct .

- What happens when that trap catches our politicians?

-It's already happened to us. It is easy to find leaders who have become dogmatic, who do not admit other points of view. Today, humility is seen as a feature of weakness. Politicians are highly criticized if they doubt, if they change their mind on a subject, and we believe that strong leaders are those who act quickly, with great conviction . Angela Merkel, for example, was criticized for her tendency to wait and gather information before adopting a position; there is even a new German verb, merkeln , to describe those doubts. However, it is shown that people with greater intellectual humility are the best prepared to make decisions.

- Is our educational system ready to teach our children not to be only intelligent?

-Our educational systems are very good for teaching us knowledge of the facts, but they do not encourage critical and rational thinking. We assume that people acquire those skills as they move forward in life, but it is not true. Entire generations are going through the education system without the basic ability to identify when they are being deceived .

Since the intelligence tests began to be applied more than 100 years ago, the score of our intellectual coefficients has not stopped growing. Every day we are apparently smarter and an average person today would have been considered a genius a century ago. It is what is called the Flynn effect . Recent studies argue, however, that the trend could be decreasing, that we are close to maximum intelligence. "We are smarter, but in reality we are not wiser," says Robson. "We simply have a greater intellectual capacity to justify our decisions and beliefs, even if they are wrong and biased."

José Antonio Marina says that when critical intelligence fails, all intelligence fails and warns that worse than someone too intelligent is someone too smart. «That is why in Spanish we say 'Don't go too smart' but we never say 'don't go smart'”.

-How much is our intelligence worth today?

-That criteria is set by society. If we reward the undesirable, they would come out undesirable as fungi.

BIG ERRORS OF BRIGHT MINDS

• Steve Jobs Co-founder and president of Apple and top shareholder of Disney, died of cancer at age 56 after refusing for months to operate to follow a special diet of alternative medicine.
• Linus Pauling Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery of the nature of chemical bonds, he spent years ensuring that vitamin supplements cured cancer.
• Kary Mullis He won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his discovery of the polymerase chain reaction, but denied the existence of the AIDS virus and climate change. He believed in astral travel.
• Paul Frampton Brilliant physicist expert in dark matter, he was tricked by a former Miss Bikini on a dating website and ended up imprisoned for traveling with a suitcase loaded with narcotics.
• Arthur Conan Doyle The British writer and doctor, creator of Sherlock Holmes, believed in fairies, attended spiritualists five times a week and said that his wife had powers.
• Thomas Edison After manufacturing the first electric bulb, it triggered a ridiculous public relations war against alternating current and in favor of direct current.

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