Emile comments on In Defense of Moral Investigation - Less Wrong

-5 Post author: MTGandP 04 November 2012 04:26AM

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Comment author: Emile 07 November 2012 12:14:39PM *  5 points [-]

The fact that you haven't studied the topic seriously makes it even more surprising that you hold a position that goes against expert opinion! People are wrong all the time on topics they have studied for years, that should make us even more wary of holding strong opinions on topics we have studied for mere hours!

If you think that intelligence covers A, B, C and D, but that IQ tests only test A and B, find out why! Maybe C is hard to measure directly, but so strongly correlated with A and B that it can be predicted anyway! Maybe after reflection, C doesn't fit in a meaningful definition of intelligence, and is grouped under another heading (like "emotional intelligence"). Maybe the tests actually cover D, but you don't know it because you're basing yourself off tests from the fifties or lame internet tests. Maybe C varies too strongly with time even within the same individual to be worth measuring.

The point is, if an expert believes X, but you wouldn't believe X out of hand, it's more likely that there's a surprising reason for X rather than the expert is wrong.