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27chaos comments on Rationality Quotes Thread March 2016 - Less Wrong
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The failures to grasp the meaning which are the impressive feature of our third set of protocols are, therefore, not easy to range in order. Inability to construe may have countless causes. Distractions, preconceptions, inhibitions of all kinds have their part, and putting our finger on the obstructing item is always largely guesswork. The assumption, however, that stupidity is not a simple quality, such as weight or impenetrability were once thought to be, but an effect of complex inhibitions is a long stride in a hopeful direction. The most leaden-witted blockhead thereby becomes an object of interest.
― I. A Richard, Practical Criticism- A study of literature
I feel like general stupidity does exist, in the same way that general intelligence does? Not sure what you like about this quote. The idea that biases are diverse, maybe?
General stupidity exists, but effective stupidity occurs regularly in very intelligent people. It's easy and feels good to dismiss people who disagree with you, and are wrong, as stupid. This is sometimes true, but it closes off the possibility of uncovering biases and other problems and correcting them.
Intelligence and stupidity are both complex things with multiple causes. A "general factor" of intelligence or stupidity doesn't take away the fact that some people are particularly good or bad at particular things for particular reasons.
Incidentally, it may be worth mentioning that the people whose work I A Richards is referring to here, who exhibited such "failure to grasp the meaning" of (in this case) some not especially obscure poetry, were undergraduate students of English at the University of Cambridge. So we're talking about relative stupidity here; these are people selected for intelligence and with at least some interest in (and apparent aptitude for) the material. Some of their errors really are pretty stupid, though.
[EDITED to fix an inconsequential typo.]