For raising sanity waterline Freakonomics books do more than Sequences.
Hmmm, if I'm going to talk about "applied intelligence" and "practical results", I really have to concede this point to you, even though I really don't want to.
The Sequences feel like they demonstrate more intelligence, because they appeal to my level of thinking, whereas Freakonomics feels like it is written to a more average-intelligence audience. But, of course, there's plenty of stuff written above my level, so unless I privilege myself rather dramatically, I have to concede that Eliezer hasn't really done anything special. Especially since a lot of his rationalist ideas are available from other sources, if not outright FROM other sources (Bayes, etc.)
I'd still argue that the Sequences are a clear sign that Eliezer is intelligent ("bright") because clearly a stupid person could not have done this. But I mean that in the sense that probably most post-graduates are also smart - a stupid person couldn't make it through college.
Um... thank you for breaking me out of a really stupid thought pattern :)
He is obviously PhD-level bright and probably quite a bit above average PhD-holder level. He writes well, he has learned quite a lot of cognitive science and I think that writing a thesis would be expenditure of diligence and time more than effort for him.
From the other point of view, some of his writings make me think that he doesn't have the feel of, for example, what is possible and what is not with programming due to relatively limited practice. This also makes me heavily discount his position on FOOM when it clashes with the predictions of people from the field and with predictions of, say, Jeff Hawkins who studied both AI sciences and neurology and Hanson's economical arguments at the same time.
I've spent so much time in the cogsci literature that I know the LW approach to rationality is basically the mainstream cogsci approach to rationality (plus some extra stuff about, e.g., language), but... do other people not know this? Do people one step removed from LessWrong — say, in the 'atheist' and 'skeptic' communities — not know this? If this is causing credibility problems in our broader community, it'd be relatively easy to show people that Less Wrong is not, in fact, a "fringe" approach to rationality.
For example, here's Oaksford & Chater in the second chapter to the (excellent) new Oxford Handbook of Thinking and Reasoning, the one on normative systems of rationality:
Is it meaningful to attempt to develop a general theory of rationality at all? We might tentatively suggest that it is a prima facie sign of irrationality to believe in alien abduction, or to will a sports team to win in order to increase their chance of victory. But these views or actions might be entirely rational, given suitably nonstandard background beliefs about other alien activity and the general efficacy of psychic powers. Irrationality may, though, be ascribed if there is a clash between a particular belief or behavior and such background assumptions. Thus, a thorough-going physicalist may, perhaps, be accused of irrationality if she simultaneously believes in psychic powers. A theory of rationality cannot, therefore, be viewed as clarifying either what people should believe or how people should act—but it can determine whether beliefs and behaviors are compatible. Similarly, a theory of rational choice cannot determine whether it is rational to smoke or to exercise daily; but it might clarify whether a particular choice is compatible with other beliefs and choices.
From this viewpoint, normative theories can be viewed as clarifying conditions of consistency… Logic can be viewed as studying the notion of consistency over beliefs. Probability… studies consistency over degrees of belief. Rational choice theory studies the consistency of beliefs and values with choices.
They go on to clarify that by probability they mean Bayesian probability theory, and by rational choice theory they mean Bayesian decision theory. You'll get the same account in the textbooks on the cogsci of rationality, e.g. Thinking and Deciding or Rational Choice in an Uncertain World.