Eradicating Stupidity

[DerDrache]

Do you think it's feasible for our society (I'm specifically addressing other Americans, though this applies to all human societies) to eradicate stupidity, such that the vast majority of people are rational, logical, scientific thinkers that aren't controlled by unproven (or disproven, usually) beliefs?

I can't help but thinking that ANY attempts on a government level would inevitably lead us down a slippery slope, though at the same time, I also think that most people could use several swift kicks in the ass (metaphorically) for their insane beliefs. I think just about everyone has prejudices and mild superstitions, but the rational and scientific thinkers can ultimately conquer such things. For instance, I'll admit that racist ideas have entered my head on numerous occasions, but because I'm reasonably good at rational thinking and have a grasp on the scientific method, such ideas never become a reality for me. In contrast, the racists that want to erradicate every non-[insert race here] from the planet obviously never got the memo.

To define who I'm referring to as stupid: Some would argue that perception is reality, and that there's no true "objectivity' in our world. While that's true in some ways, I think that science and logical-thinking does afford us an objective way of defining reality. No matter what a person thinks is there, you can almost always test the physical result of the situation. On that basis, we can form an objective map of reality. "Stupid" people can be redefined as delusional: ignoring concrete evidence or major logical steps, and continuing on with their beliefs.

Unless a person is legitimately mentally handicapped, I think that they are definitely capable of being a rational, logical thinker. The problem, in my opinion, is often that they form an irrational belief (usually with some basis in observational fact) and through some means that belief becomes their reality. If someone says that gravity doesn't exist, then most people would scoff and say "That's bullshit.". Of course, with science you can effectively prove that everything going up will eventually come down. A delusional person would see all of this evidence and one way or another, would conclude that there is no force pulling people downward on Earth. At any rate, there are different levels of delusion...ranging from minor prejudices or superstitions, to the guy sitting in a refrigerator trying to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere. () If you look at yourself and all the people you've met or heard of, it should be fairly clear that there's some level of delusion in all of us.

So, since we're all delusional (read: "stupid") on some level, and since it seems likely that we can curb our delusions with the proper environment, I return to my original question. Is there any feasible way that we could eradicate stupidity, either as citizens, or on a legal level (ie. via state/federal bans). (If you tackle the question on a legal level, please don't ignore the slippery slope factor).

[DerDrache]

Okay, let me rephrase:

What's an alternative to just killing all of the white supremacists, ignoramuses, and religious fanatics?

[MR.Kitty55]

Originally Posted by DerDrache

Okay, let me rephrase:

What's an alternative to just killing all of the white supremacists, ignoramuses, and religious fanatics?

Education

[DerDrache]

Originally Posted by MR.Kitty55

Education

There are plenty of well-educated white nationalists and religious fanatics. For many people, the issue often isn't a lack of knowledge, but faulty beliefs and a refusal to properly incorporate knowledge.

[CC]

Stupid People: Because someone has to shovel the shit.

[LuKaZz420]

Originally Posted by DerDrache

Okay, let me rephrase:

What's an alternative to just killing all of the white supremacists, ignoramuses, and religious fanatics?

Ignore them, that's the most effective way of dealing with them.

[DerDrache]

Originally Posted by LuKaZz420

Ignore them, that's the most effective way of dealing with them.

It's everywhere. Just open the newspaper or turn on the news and you're guaranteed to see delusional behavior of all order of magnitudes. The problem is that it's highly likely that such behavior will affect us all at some point.

I think just about everyone is capable of being logical and non-delusional...I think it's kind of crazy not to strive for that. So really guys, any ideas for practical solutions? I mentioned "alternative to killing" as a joke; if you killed the current delusional people, there would always be more in their place. There are external causes that cause people to grow up this way, and I'd be curious on your thoughts to what these causes are.

Should schools focus extensively on critical thinking skills and science instead of the traditional topics such as arithmetic and reading? It's important that people can read and do math, and those skills do contribute to contribute to cognitive development, but...I think are too many people that can read well and understand numbers, but that can't think logically. Think about all of the Totseans that can endlessly quote studies or statistics, but usually overestimate the validity of such things, or completely misinterpret the results.

[ChickenOfDoom]

It doesn't matter much. Yes, there exist a lot of stupid ideas that are obviously wrong to anyone with half a brain, but at the same time there are very few ideas that you can reasonably have any real degree of certainty about (at least when they have to do with human nature and systems). The more you know, the more commonly held ideas can be discounted. Even in the rare case that a person comes to logical conclusions based on what they know, the quality of their deductions has more to do with the quality of their assumptions than their raw intellectual ability. Ultimately, I think that significant practical experience with the issue in question is the only way to have an opinion that is not stupid.

We don't know shit about most things but pretend we do.

To solve this problem, it would help a lot to make some small changes to the school curriculum. When you're taught to write, they always insist above all else that you take a stand one way or the other and do not use terms like 'I think' or discuss possible reasons why you could be wrong. The intention is to teach students to write things that convince people of things, the effect is that they end up thinking its ok to have an opinion without knowing much at all about your subject.

That and whatever causes groups of people to take a set of opinions (usually political) and repeat them with the exact same arguments ad nauseum regardless of whether those arguments are relevant or have a basis in reality.

It's probably something you can't fix in the end. People love their opinions, love feeling outrage and superiority towards everyone that disagrees with them.

[DerDrache]

Originally Posted by ChickenOfDoom

It doesn't matter much. Yes, there exist a lot of stupid ideas that are obviously wrong to anyone with half a brain, but at the same time there are very few ideas that you can reasonably have any real degree of certainty about (at least when they have to do with human nature and systems). The more you know, the more commonly held ideas can be discounted. Even in the rare case that a person comes to logical conclusions based on what they know, the quality of their deductions has more to do with the quality of their assumptions than their raw intellectual ability. Ultimately, I think that significant practical experience with the issue in question is the only way to have an opinion that is not stupid.

We don't know shit about most things but pretend we do.

To solve this problem, it would help a lot to make some small changes to the school curriculum. When you're taught to write, they always insist above all else that you take a stand one way or the other and do not use terms like 'I think' or discuss possible reasons why you could be wrong. The intention is to teach students to write things that convince people of things, the effect is that they end up thinking its ok to have an opinion without knowing much at all about your subject.

That and whatever causes groups of people to take a set of opinions (usually political) and repeat them with the exact same arguments ad nauseum regardless of whether those arguments are relevant or have a basis in reality.

It's probably something you can't fix in the end. People love their opinions, love feeling outrage and superiority towards everyone that disagrees with them.

Thanks for the thoughtful response.

Your spot on about our tendency to pretend we know and understand everything, as well the problems with persuasive writing. It's kind of disturbing, if you think about it. From a relatively young age, we were being trained to convince everyone around us that we were "right". That's definitely a tendency that needs to be done away with in schools.

I was also thinking that in early grammar school they should focus on real-world critical thinking problems. We're at our most impressionable at a young age, so if you train children to look at things from all angles, I think they'd grow up to be much smarter individuals. For instance, starting from Kindergarten teachers give the class group word-problems (presented with pictures and oral descriptions, obviously) where they're forced to find non-linear possible solutions. Let's say you showed them a picture of an empty cookie jar and four children: one with cookie crumbs on his face, one that's fat, one that's skinny, and one that is nondescript. You then train them by asking questions such as "What do you know?", "Why do you think the big kid/skinny kid/crumbs-on-face kid/nondescript kid/etc. took the cookie?", and so on. Train them to recognize what things they know for sure, and train them to consider all the possibilities. I may be wrong, but in my experiencce it seems that children are actually better at this than adults. If an adult was asked 'Who took the cookies", I'd guess that most would give a definitive answer, and they'd probably choose the person with cookie crumbs on their face. Kids seem to be more creative: "I think it was Billy (the nondescript kid). Maybe he wanted to have a cookie before he went to school but his mom wouldn't let him, so he took the cookies."

As they get older and more mature, you train them to identify likely possibilities without being close-minded to other options. You'd give them more complex, real-world situations too.

I think if we could implement those types of programs as major parts of school curriculum's, we'd be much better off.

[23]

Originally Posted by DerDrache

well-educated...religious fanatics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_History

HAH!