Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Intelligence


To be intelligent means many things of course. For the present purpose, I’ll underscore that intelligence is knowing how to weigh the evidence that flies in the face of steadfast assumptions. It means to know when causality can be inferred and not, to know when the weight of correlational evidence must be taken seriously, to know that a replication is worth much more than a single demonstration, to know that when new methods divulge strange truths about us and our brethren, it may be the theory that has to go. The moral obligation to be intelligent requires that we keep abreast of discoveries that require old views to be bagged and put out on the curb for recycling – every week.

From this essay (in two   parts) titled The moral obligation to be intelligent by Mahzarin Banaji of Harvard.

1 Comments:

  1. Prad said...

    Moral obligation to be intelligent I think is more of doing something that is worthwhile than to just do something new,not curb the old ideas but to store them for future may be you will need em coz paradigm of "truth" keeps changing,but yes in obligation to be intelligent,one has to change their paradigms as n when you encounter the better,ofcourse this still continues to be a choice.

    www.pradeepkumar.com