"Uno studio dice che..."

How the Media Promote the Public Misunderstanding of Science - Bad Science by Ben Goldacre

I giornali promuovono attivamente da sempre la non comprensione della scienza.

Chissà perché c’è una mania isterica per alcuni argomenti, sempre quelle…

… the seductive march to medicalise everyday life; the fantasies about pills, mainstream and quack; and the ludicrous health claims about food, where journalists are every bit as guilty as nutritionists…

Congettura: chi scrive sa poco di cio’ di cui parla…

… My basic hypothesis is this: the people who run the media are humanities graduates with little understanding of science, who wear their ignorance as a badge of honour….

Per finire sul giornale la tua ricerca deve essere: o stravagante, o rivoluzionario o deve mettere paura…

… Science stories generally fall into one of three categories: the wacky stories, the ‘breakthrough’ stories, and the ‘scare’ stories…

Kevin Warwick, per esempio, si è fatto un nome nel settore “stravaganza”, ormai è un vero imprenditore di se stesso…

… At Reading University there is a man called Dr Kevin Warwick, and he has been a fountain of eye-catching stories for some time. He puts a chip from a wireless ID card in his arm, then shows journalists how he can open doors in his department using it. ‘I am a cyborg,’ he announces, ‘a melding of man and machine,’* and the media are duly impressed. A favourite research story from his lab—although it’s never been published in any kind of academic journal, of course—purported to show that watching Richard and Judy improves children’s IQ test performance much more effectively than all kinds of other things you might expect to do so, like, say, some exercise, or drinking some coffee… These stories are empty, wacky filler, masquerading as science…

Ma perché questo genere di “cattiva scienza” finisce sui giornali? Soldi…

… They are also there to make money, to promote products, and to fill pages cheaply, with a minimum of journalistic effort….

Il caso di Cliff Arnall…

… Dr Cliff Arnall is the king of the equation story, and his recent output includes the formulae for the most miserable day of the year, the happiest day of the year, the perfect long weekend and many, many more. According to the BBC he is ‘Professor Arnall’; usually he is ‘Dr Cliff Arnall of Cardiff University’. In reality he’s a private entrepreneur running confidence-building and stress-management courses, who has done a bit of part-time instructing at Cardiff University. The university’s press office, however, are keen to put him in their monthly media-monitoring success reports. This is how low we have sunk…

Si tratta quasi sempre di ricerche con sponsor abbinato…

… These stories are not informative. They are promotional activity masquerading as news…

Servono anche come “riempitivo” all’enorme palla di carta da inchiostrare ogni santo giorno che dio manda in terra. Giornalismo? Nick Davies parla di “Churnalism”.

Lo sapevate, per esempio, che ce l’avremo più grosso? Interessante. E a dirlo non è un pincopalla qualsiasi ma il Dr Oliver Curry, studioso dell’evoluzione umana, che lavora presso il “Darwin@LSE research centre”. Ecco la storia che ci racconta…

… By the year 3000, the average human will be 6½ft tall, have coffee-coloured skin and live for 120 years, new research predicts. And the good news does not end there. Blokes will be chuffed to learn their willies will get bigger—and women’s boobs will become more pert… This was presented as important ‘new research’…

In nome dell’evoluzionismo (basta pronunciare il nome di Darwin) ci beviamo di tutto come fosse chinotto…

… Evolutionary theory is probably one of the top three most important ideas of our time, and it seems a shame to get it wrong. This ridiculous set of claims was covered in every British newspaper as a news story…

Ma perché tanta “scienza cattiva” anche da stimati professori?…

… One thing that fascinates me is this: Dr Curry is a proper academic (although a political theorist, not a scientist). I’m not seeking to rubbish his career. I’m sure he’s done lots of stimulating work, but in all likelihood nothing he will ever do in his profession as a relatively accomplished academic at a leading Russell Group university will ever generate as much media coverage—or have as much cultural penetrance—as this childish, lucrative, fanciful, wrong essay, which explains nothing to anybody. Isn’t life strange?…

Forse la scienza è troppo noiosa, cosicché ci si butta sulla cattiva scienza.

Un’equazione ha stabilito che Jessica Alba ha le tette perfette, lo riferisce con enfasi il Daily Telegraph…

… ‘Jessica Alba, the film actress, has the ultimate sexy strut, according to a team of Cambridge mathematicians.’…

Scava, scava e cosa ci trovi sotto l’ equazione? Sondaggi approssimativi…

… Are these stories so bad? They are certainly pointless, and reflect a kind of contempt for science. They are merely PR promotional pieces for the companies which plant them, but it’s telling that they know exactly where newspapers’ weaknesses lie: as we shall see, bogus survey data is a hot ticket in the media…

La scienza sui giornali ama le cure miracolose, la cosa consente di giocare con le nostre paure più recondite. Ad ogni modo la salute domina…

… Over half of all the science coverage in a newspaper is concerned with health, because stories of what will kill or cure us are highly motivating, and in this field the pace of research has changed dramatically, as I have already briefly mentioned…

Cerchiamo di capire meglio la dinamica.

Proiettiamoci nell’era ante-1935: la medicina contava pressoché zero…

… Before 1935 doctors were basically useless…

Poi, una serie di miracoli, fino agli anni settanta…

… barrage of miracles: kidney dialysis machines allowed people to live on despite losing two vital organs. Transplants brought people back from a death sentence. CT scanners could give three-dimensional images of the inside of a living person. Heart surgery rocketed forward. Almost every drug you’ve ever heard of was invented. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (the business with the chest compressions and the electric shocks to bring you back) began in earnest. Let’s not forget polio. The disease paralyses your muscles, and if it affects those of your chest wall, you literally cannot pull air in and out: so you die. Well, reasoned the doctors, polio paralysis often retreats spontaneously…

Infine, di nuovo stagnazione con qualche piccolo miglioramento qua e là: la ricerca sul cancro illustra bene la palude di cui parlo…

… The golden age—mythical and simplistic though that model may be—ended in the 1970s. But medical research did not grind to a halt. Far from it: your chances of dying as a middle-aged man have probably halved over the past thirty years, but this is not because of any single, dramatic, headline-grabbing breakthrough. Medical academic research today moves forward through the gradual emergence of small incremental improvements, in our understanding of drugs, their dangers and benefits, best practice in their prescription, the nerdy refinement of obscure surgical techniques, identification of modest risk factors, and their avoidance through public health programmes (like ‘five-a-day’) which are themselves hard to validate…

Ma i giornali sono ancora assetati di scoperte rivoluzionarie (il piccolo miglioramento non fa notizia)…

… This is the major problem for the media when they try to cover medical academic research these days: you cannot crowbar these small incremental steps—which in the aggregate make a sizeable contribution to health—into the pre-existing ‘miracle-cure-hidden-scare’ template…

E’ il periodo d’oro delle “ricerche non replicabili”…

…There has been a lot of excellent work done, much of it by a Greek academic called John Ioannidis, demonstrating how and why a large amount of brand-new research with unexpected results will subsequently turn out to be false…

La ricerca rivoluzionaria è molto amata, sembrerebbe confutare i saperi acquisiti, il che avvalorerebbe una versione umanistica della scienza…

… This reinforces one of the key humanities graduates’ parodies of science: as well as being irrelevant boffinry, science is temporary, changeable, constantly revising itself, like a transient fad…

***

I giornali non fanno che dirci “la scienza ci dice che…”. E’ la loro formula prediletta per introdurre la grande notizia.

Il problema dei giornali che parlano di scienza è che non mostrano mai la prova scientifica che sta dietro la ricerca di cui fanno finta di parlare. A loro basta la formuletta di cui sopra, danno forse per scontata l’ignoranza di chi legge…

… The biggest problem with science stories is that they routinely contain no scientific evidence at all. Why? Because papers think you won’t understand the ‘science bit’, so all stories involving science must be dumbed down, in a desperate bid to seduce and engage the ignorant…

Si limitano alle conclusioni apodittiche. E così la scienza viene mitizzata anziché compresa…

… you are simply presented with the conclusions of a piece of research, without being told what was measured, how, and what was found—the evidence—then you are simply taking the researchers’ conclusions at face value, and being given no insight into the process…

Il fatto è che parlando con proprietà e precisione le obiezioni fioccherebbero…

… Compare the two sentences ‘Research has shown that black children in America tend to perform less well in IQ tests than white children’ and ‘Research has shown that black people are less intelligent than white people.’…

Il diavolo sta nei dettagli, di conseguenza i dettagli vanno evitati.

Non solo: le conclusioni vanno forzate per suonare interessanti…

… Often you cannot trust researchers to come up with a satisfactory conclusion on their results—they might be really excited about one theory—and you need to check their actual experiments to form your own view. This requires that news reports are about published research which can, at least, be read somewhere…

Il caso preclaro della patata OGM…

… the unpublished ‘GM potato’ claims of Dr Arpad Pusztai that genetically modified potatoes caused cancer in rats resulted in ‘Frankenstein food’ headlines for a whole year before the research was finally published, and could be read and meaningfully assessed. Contrary to the media speculation, his work did not support the hypothesis that GM is injurious to health (this doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a good thing—as we will see later)…

Nel resoconto salta quasi sempre la differenza tra ipotesi formulate ed evidenze raggiunte…

… Sometimes it’s clear that the journalists themselves simply don’t understand the unsubtle difference between the evidence and the hypothesis. The Times, for example, covered an experiment which showed that having younger siblings was associated with a lower incidence of multiple sclerosis. MS is caused by the immune system turning on the body…

Lo scienziato è poi  convocato in solitudine e posto su un pulpito per “spiegare”. Normale che la sua parola suoni terribilmente pretesca…

… How do the media work around their inability to deliver scientific evidence? Often they use authority figures, the very antithesis of what science is about, as if they were priests, or politicians, or parent figures. ‘Scientists today said… Scientists revealed… Scientists warned’…

Lo scienziato parla tra l’incenso. Oddio, “parla”, più che altro “rivela”.

Quando viene convocata una controparte? Giusto quando il confronto promette di trasformarsi in un match senza esclusione di colpi. Il pubblico non capirà nulla ma di certo apprezza le sberle che volano…

… How do the media work around their inability to deliver scientific evidence? Often they use authority figures, the very antithesis of what science is about, as if they were priests, or politicians, or parent figures. ‘Scientists today said… Scientists revealed… Scientists warned’…

Risultato: la parodia della scienza.

Il modello scandinavo

Chi oggi si oppone al modello liberista indica l’esempio del modello scandinavo: welfare gratuito, alte tasse, diseguaglianze contenute, politiche anti-discriminatorie e crescita apprezzabile.

Ma siamo sicuri che dietro la crescita ci siano davvero welfare, tasse e tutto il resto? Siamo di fronte ad un’anomalia tanto straordinaria da meritare studi approfonditi?

Secondo Nima Sanandaji (Debunking Utopia: Exposing the Myth of Nordic Socialism) le cose non stanno in questi termini: cio’ che più invidiamo ai paesi scandinavi precede l’avvento del welfare state e delle altre politiche tipiche di questi lidi.

Facciamo un esempio: i danesi oggi hanno una speranza di vita superiore a quella americana ma non sembra affatto che il loro sistema sanitario “gratuito” c’entri qualcosa: prima il divario era ancora più marcato!:

… Danes today outlive their American counterparts, but not because Denmark has the highest tax-to-GDP ratio in the developed world. As late as 1960, taxes in Denmark were actually lower than in the United States (25 percent of GDP compared with 27 percent), yet at the time, Danes lived 2.4 years longer than Americans—well before the creation of the Danish welfare state. In Sweden and Norway, too, the gap in life span compared with the United States is smaller today than it was in the mid–twentieth century, when their public sectors were relatively less developed. Child mortality follows a similar trend: when Nordic countries had small welfare states, they were further ahead compared with the rest of the world than they are today…

Non si capisce niente dei paesi scandinavi se non si guarda alla loro storia. Una storia fatta di successi economici con i quali si è finanziato un welfare costoso che ha finito per ingolfare il sistema richiedendo pesanti riforme negli anni ‘90.

In genere si possono isolare quattro fasi. Prendiamo la Svezia: prima fase, avvento del mercato libero e del benessere:

… In the latter half of the nineteenth century, liberal politicians such as Johan August Gripenstedt,minister of finance from 1856 to 1866, introduced reforms designed to secure business freedom, free trade, and strong protections for property rights. From around 1870 to 1936, Sweden pursued pro-market economic policies and was rewarded with an average yearly growth rate of two percent—the highest of any western European nation during the period and twice as high as rates of leading economies such as that of the United Kingdom…

Seconda fase: cominciano ad essere introdotte le prime misura di welfare, anche le tasse si alzano: il benessere rallenta pur restando su livelli accettabili accettabile:

In 1936, the Swedish Social Democratic Party was able to form its first majority government. The Social Democrats went on to dominate Swedish political life until 1970, slowly raising taxes and expanding the welfare state while, for the most part, leaving the market-oriented policies of their predecessors in place. During these years, Sweden’s growth rate rose to 2.9 percent. Although higher in absolute terms than before—a product of technological growth and the postwar boom—this was around the western European average. (Austria, for instance, grew by a yearly average of 3.5 percent over the same period

Terza fase: il welfare esplode, le tasse s’impennano e il paese salta in aria fallendo come un’ Argentina qualsiasi:

Then, between 1970 and 1991, Sweden—unlike other Nordic countries—experimented with third way socialism. The pinnacle of these policies was the introduction of “employer funds,” a system through which ownership of private firms would slowly be transferred to funds run by the labor unions. Sweden’s average growth rate fell to 1.4 percent, the second lowest in western Europe, and many successful businesses and individuals left the country…

Quarta fase: riforme neo-liberiste (primi anni 90) e nuovo balzo in avanti della ricchezza disponibile: 

The socialist experiment was followed by an era of renewed focus on market reforms, reduced generosity of welfare programs, and significant tax reductions. The reforms paid off: between 1991 and 2014, Sweden’s growth rate rose to 1.8 percent—placing the country only slightly behind the United Kingdom, which had the highest rate in western Europe during this period…

Un resoconto di buon senso che fa dei paesi scandinavi paesi “normali” sottoposti alle medesime leggi economiche che “tormentano” anche noi comuni mortali: il welfare è un lusso che si paga caro e frena la produzione di ricchezza.

Mi sorprende piuttosto quel che segue: anche la diseguaglianza sembra un portato di epoche precedenti: era infatti bassa anche in epoca di laissez faire:

… in a 2008 study of top incomes in Sweden, the economists Jesper Roine and Daniel Waldenstrom explain that “most of the decrease [in income equality in Sweden] takes place before the expansion of the welfare state and by 1950 Swedish top income shares were already lower than in other countries.” A 2013 study by Anthony Barnes Atkinson and Jakob Egholt Sogaard reached a similar conclusion for Denmark and Norway. As my brother, the economist Tino Sanandaji, explains in another paper from 2012: “American scholars who write about the success of the Scandinavian welfare states in the postwar period tend to be remarkably uninterested in Scandinavia’s history prior to that period…

L’autore formula un’ipotesi che a me convince: nel caso dei paesi scandinavi è la cultura che conta, non le istituzioni; in particolare la cultura del “lavoro duro” e lo stigma sui scansafatiche:

Good social outcomes in the Nordic countries predate the welfare state because what makes Nordic societies unique is related not to policy—large welfare states can also be found in countries such as Belgium, France, and Spain—but to culture. Over 100 years ago, German sociologist Max Weber observed that Protestant countries in northern Europe tended to have higher living standards, better academic institutions, and more well-functioning societies than countries in other parts of Europe. He attributed their success to the “Protestant work ethic.” The welfare states were introduced only once Nordic societies had already become prosperous and equal.

Inoltre, porta un dato estremamente significativo: gli svedesi in america (notare che chi migra è in genere più povero di chi puo’ restare) oggi sono mediamente più ricchi degli svedesi restati in patria (evidentemente, isolando l’effetto delle istituzioni, quelle svedesi sono meno performanti):

Historically, impoverished people in the Nordic countries were more likely than the rich to sail across the Atlantic to start new lives. Yet despite coming from the poorest rungs of Nordic society, Nordic Americans have become much more affluent than their cousins back in Europe. Today, measured by GDP per capita, Danish Americans’ living standards are 55 percent higher than those of Danes; living standards of Swedish Americans are 53 percent higher than those of Swedes; and Finnish Americans’ living standards are 59 percent higher than the Finns’. Even for Norwegian Americans, who lack the oil wealth of Norway, living standards outpace those of the Norwegians by three percent.

  CONCLUSIONI PERSONALI

Le istituzioni formali dipendono da quelle informali, per quello cio’ che “funziona qua” non “funziona là”. Non si creda allora di poter esportare impunemente il modello scandinavo senza un background culturale adeguato.

Intelligenza e razionalità

Keith E. Stanovich è il più grande esperto di “geni che fanno cose stupide”. Il suo pensiero e la sua esperienza è raccolta nel libro “What Intelligence Tests Miss: The Psychology of Rational Thought”.

Il suo punto di partenza – come quello di un’intera generazione di studiosi - è il lavoro di Daniel Kahneman e Amos Tversky sull’analisi dei processi decisionali.

A quanto pare ci sono “scorciatoie cognitive” che ci inducono scelte irrazionali. Ormai sono noti una serie di errori sistematici, di “trappole” in cui cadiamo regolarmente.

Il nostro giudizio in condizioni di incertezza è sistematicamente fallato, questo ha implicazioni pesanti sulla nostra razionalità.

E qui si presenta un fenomeno interessante: l’intelligenza di una persona non sembra metterlo al riparo da questi specifici errori. La persona “brillante” non è affatto vaccinata contro le illusioni cognitive link link

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Ma cosa significa essere razionali…

… Being rational means acting to achieve one's own life goals using the best means possible…

C’ è una bella differenza tra fare qualche errore qua e là ogni tanto e sbagliarsi sistematicamente sempre nello stesso prevedibile senso.

Ma qui arriva un’altra verità importante: alcune persone si sbagliano meno. Sono più attente. Sono più razionali.

Queste persone non sono le più intelligenti. Sebbene intelligenza e razionalità siano in qualche modo correlate non sono affatto la stessa cosa.

Si tratta allora di capire il segreto della razionalità.

Tra gli individui, ci sono differenze sistematiche nel modo di pensare e prendere decisioni. Alcuni sono più razionali di altre. E’ curioso che nessuna di queste differenze sia descritta e valutata dai test IQ.

Questo fatto è decisamente contro-intuitivo…

… most laypeople are prone to think that IQ tests are tests of, to put it colloquially, good thinking…

Si presuppone che la persona intelligente “pensi bene”. Non è così.

Secondo equivoco…

… A second, and related, point is that when people use the term intelligence (again, laypersons and psychologists alike), they often talk as if the concept of intelligence encompassed rationality…

Cosa caratterizza la razionalità?…

… Adaptive decision making is the quintessence of rationality…

***

Un fenomeno tipico che tutti conosciamo…

… "smart people doing dumb things."…

Se per “smart” intendiamo chi ha un QI elevato e per “dumb” intendiamo “ fare scelte folli e ottuse”, il fenomeno puo’ essere facilmente chiarito, non deve meravigliarci.

I test IQ non misurano affatto l’ “adaptive decision making”, ovvero la variabile fondamentale, per questo persone con IQ elevato prendono decisioni folli.

Evitare i bias cognitivi non è tipico della personalità intelligente…

… Rational thinking skills of the type studied by Kahneman and Tversky show only small-to-medium correlations with intelligence test performance-not surprisingly…

Noi ci concentriamo troppo sull’intelligenza, dovremmo rivalutare un altro set di abilità mentali.

I test dell’intelligenza sono radicalmente incompleti se chiamati a descrivere il nostro cervello. E, si badi bene, lo si afferma senza tirare in ballo “empatia”, “emozioni”, “creatività” o “socialità”. Si intende infatti restare nell’ambito strettamente cognitivo.

***

Quando il presidente Bush jr entrò in carica tutti lo consideravano un tontolone…

… there have been debates about George W. Bush's intelligence. His many opponents never seem to tire of pointing out his mental shortcomings…

La sua strana sintassi, il suo lessico goffo venivano visti come sinonimo di scarsa intelligenza.

David Frum – un simpatizzante – lo descriveva così…

… "he is impatient and quick to anger; sometimes glib, even dogmatic; often uncurious and as a result ill-informed"…

George Will, altro conservatore…

… "has neither the inclination nor the ability to make sophisticated judgments…

Il pensiero di Bush sembrava avere parecchi aspetti problematici.

In un certo senso concedevano il punto anche i suoi sostenitori allorché lo difendevano contrapponendo "school smarts" e "street smarts".

Che sorpresa quando furono rispolverati i suoi test scolatici e militari! Il suo IQ era pari se non superiore a quello del raffinato ed elegante John Kerry.

L’errore di fondo…

… The mistake they make is assuming that all intellectual deficiencies are reflected in a lower IQ score…

I difetti cognitivi di Bush erano evidenti…

… lack of intellectual engagement, cognitive inflexibility, need for closure, belief perseverance, confirmation bias, overconfidence, and insensitivity to inconsistency….

Ma questi non sono difetti che incidono sull’ IQ di una persona.

Si tratta di difetti catturati invece dal concetto di “dysrationalia”. Come possiamo definirla meglio?…

… I define dysrationalia as the inability to think and behave rationally despite having adequate intelligence…

Detto questo, appare chiaro come i test IQ siano sopravvalutati mentre altre facoltà siano sottovalutate.

Cosa ci manda in confusione nella vicenda Bush?…

… Bush's supporters like his actions but admit that he has "street smarts," or common sense, rather than "school smarts." Assuming his "school smarts" to be low…

Il fatto è che nel linguaggio popolare il concetto di intelligenza è vago e generalmente usato con un’accezione positiva senza riserve.

***

Cosa significa pensare razionalmente?…

… To think rationally means adopting appropriate goals, taking the appropriate action given one's goals and beliefs, and holding beliefs that are commensurate with available evidence…

Cosa non misura il test IQ?…

… do not assess at all whether a person has the tendency to develop goals that are rational… do not assess at all whether a person has the tendency to form beliefs rationally when presented with evidence…

Cosa misura?…

… IQ tests are good measures of how well a person can hold beliefs in short-term memory and manipulate those beliefs…

In poche parole, la persona intelligente ha bisogno di dati di partenza chiari e di una meta chiara da raggiungere. Anche se la traversata è complicata, lui arriverà brillantemente in porto. La persona razionale invece se la cava benone anche in un ambiente confuso, dove i dati di partenza non sono del tutto attendibili e la meta appare vaga sullo sfondo. Proprio l’ambiente dove la persona intelligente naufraga.

C’è differenza tra processare informazioni e valutarle…

… IQ tests are good measures of how efficiently a person processes information that has been provided, but they do not at all assess whether the person is a critical assessor of information as it is gathered in the natural environment…

E’ ridicolo esaltare l’intelligenza e snobbare la razionalità. Eppure c’è una certa resistenza a mutare atteggiamento.

Di solito ci si oppone dicendo…

… “would you want someone with an IQ of 92 doing surgery?"…

Al che è facile replicare…

… I also would not want someone with a rationality quotient (RQ) of 93 serving on the judicial bench, someone with an RQ of 91 heading a legislature, someone with an RQ of 76 investing my retirement funds, someone with an RQ of 94 marketing the home I am selling, or a guidance counselor with an RQ of 83 advising the children in my school district…

Perché non progettare dei test sulla razionalità anziché insistere con i test sull’intelligenza? La conoscenza adeguata per procedere ormai c’è!

In cosa consisterebbe il lavoro…

… cognitive scientists have developed laboratory tasks and real-life performance indicators to measure rational thinking tendencies such as sensible goal prioritization, reflectivity, and the proper calibration of evidence… some people can have very high IQs but be remarkably weak when it comes to the ability to think rationally…

***

E’ importante capire cosa non rientra nel concetto di razionalità, ovvero di cosa non-parliamo…

… the reader probably expects me to reveal that this book is about the importance of the emotions… emotional intelligence… social intelligence…

Altro equivoco da fugare…

… many readers might well expect me to say that IQ tests do not measure anything important…

L’ IQ resta importante e altamente predittivo su molti fronti, si tratta di fronti decisivi, specie nella società contemporanea.

***

Chi è John Allen Paulos? Un ateo “brillante” ma non solo…

… is a smart man. He is a professor of mathematics at Temple University and the author of several popular books, including the best-selling Innumeracy. On any existing intelligence test, Professor Paulos would score extremely high…

Un tipo veramente intelligente. Ma un giorno…

… Nevertheless, Paulos did a very stupid thing-in fact, a whole sequence of stupid things. The sequence began with a single action that, itself, may or may not have been stupid: Professor Paulos bought the stock of WorldCom at $47 per share in early 2000. Whether or not that act was wise, the act of buying even more of the stock when it had fallen to $30 later in the year… Paulos admits that he "searched for the good news, angles, and analyses about the stock… avoiding the less sanguine indications… His purchases became even less rational later in October 2000, when the stock was at $2o and he continued to buy… mounting evidence indicated that he should have been selling…loose connection between my brain and the buy button… Paulos concealed from his wife that he had been buying stock on margin… Paulos began e-mailing the CEO of WorldCom in a desperate attempt to gain control… Professor Paulos could not stand to be out of contact with the stock's price for even an hour…. He was still buying when the price was $5… Paulos meditates on the mental states that led him to violate every principle of sound investing (diversification, etc.)…

In poche parole, JAP è un uomo intelligentissimo che ha commesso una serie di stupidate concatenate tra loro al punto che la sua idiozia non puo’ più essere definita casuale.

***

E David Denby? Chi è David Denby?…

… Denby is also a very intelligent man. He is a staff writer and film critic for The New Yorker… He lived in a valuable New York apartment and wanted to continue to own it after his divorce. That meant buying out his ex-wife. Except that the numbers didn't add up… Denby decided that he would try to make $i million in the stock market in the year 2000… That makes sense, doesn't it? Exactly the sort of thing for any reasonable fellow to do, right?… Denby tells us how, in late 1999 and early 2000 he liquidated all of his conservative investment vehicles (index stock funds, bonds, insurance policies) and invested in technology funds and dot-com stocks. His entire 4o1(k) accumulation was rolled over into a fund that invested in nothing but volatile NASDAQ companies. All this took place in late 1999 and early 2000, remember (the NASDAQ peaked at over 5000 in March 2000-in May 2004 it was trading under 2000, and in May 2007 it was still under 3000)… "I was ignorant. I understood only the most rudimentary things about the stock market… he admitted that he heard, but ignored, very clear warnings even from market enthusiasts… he clearly processed, but willfully ignored, the warning of one investment specialist…

***

Né le abilità cognitive-verbali di Denby, né le abilità cognitive-matematiche di Paulos hanno sviluppato nei due una capacità decisionale minimamente accettabile.

Si tratta di esempi in carne ed ossa di persone intelligentissime che agiscono stupidamente.

C’è chi si stupisce…

… We are astounded that there are highly trained scientists who are creationists. We cannot figure out why an educated professional would ignore proven medical treatment and instead go to Mexico for a quack therapy. We are puzzled when we hear that some Holocaust deniers are university professors with degrees in history. When our neighbors, who are high school teachers, ask us to become involved in a pyramid sales scheme, we are flabbergasted. In short, we find it paradoxical when smart people believe preposterous things and take disastrous actions…

Ma è sbagliato essere stupiti. Non c’è niente di strano in una persona intelligente che agisce stupidamente: una persona intelligente puo’ essere irrazionale! Dobbiamo accettarlo.

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Breve chiarificazione linguistica. Qui bisogna intendersi.

Robert Sternberg ha intitolato il suo libro “Why Smart People Can Be So Stupid”.

Definizione di “smart”…

… A typical dictionary definition of the adjectival form of the word smart is "characterized by sharp quick thought; bright" or "having or showing quick intelligence or ready mental capacity."…

Sembrerebbe un sinonimo di intelligente.

Definizione di stupido…

… a stupid person is "slow to learn or understand; lacking or marked by lack of intelligence."…

Ma uno non puo’ essere intelligente e non intelligente allo stesso tempo.

"Smart people being stupid" sembrerebbe quindi essere contraddittorio.

Diverso è pensare "smart acting stupid". Ancora più significativo è "smart acting dumb". ma il meglio è “smart people acting foolishly”.

Per David Perkins il “folle” è persona priva di buon senso.

In queste frasi si fa riferimento all’azione, ovvero ad un atto deciso in un ambiente complesso, vago, ambiguo.

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C’è poi un altro elemento di confusione: l’intelligenza puo’ essere definita in senso stretto e in senso allargato.

Intelligenza allargata…

… Broad theories include aspects of functioning that are captured by the vernacular term intelligence (adaptation to the environment, showing wisdom and creativity, etc.)… intelligence define it, at least in part, as the ability to adapt to one's environment… If we are concerned with cases where intelligent people make foolish decisions… we have a contradiction-smart…

Se uno ha in mente questa intelligenza, il nostro frasario puo’ apparire contraddittorio. Ci sono infatti problemi…

… Under the broad view, smart people who continually act foolishly are simply not as smart as we thought they were…

I profani spesso hanno in mente questo senso quando utilizzano il termine, e molti psicologi hanno incoraggiato questa credenza che confonde le acque.

Volendo essere più precisi, sarebbe meglio adottare il concetto di intelligenza in senso più proprio…

… abilities actually tested on extant IQ tests… performance on established tests and cognitive ability indicators…

Questa definizione si coniuga a pennello con il nostro frasario, infatti trascura alcuni elementi ben precisi che non vengono fatti rientrare nel concetto di intelligenza…

… adaptation to the environment, real-life decision making, showing wisdom and creativity…

C’è anche chi distingue l’intelligenza fluida da quella cristallizzata.

L’intelligenza fluida è un processo…

… Fluid intelligence (Gf) reflects reasoning abilities operating across of a variety of domains-in… measured by tasks of abstract reasoning such as figural analogies, Raven Matrices, and series completion…

Quella cristallizzata è più legata ad una conoscenza…

… Crystallized intelligence (Gc) reflects declarative knowledge acquired from acculturated learning experiences. It is measured by vocabulary tasks, verbal comprehension, and general knowledge measures…

Quest’ultima distinzione non sembra problematica ai nostri fini.

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Vediamo ancora una volta quali sono le qualità razionali che possono mancare in una persona intelligente…

… Adaptive behavioral acts, judicious decision making, efficient behavioral regulation, sensible goal prioritization, reflectivity, the proper calibration of evidence-all of the characteristics that are lacking when we call an action foolish, dumb, or stupid-are precisely the characteristics that cognitive scientists study when they study rational thought…

C’è una razionalità strumentale…

… Cognitive scientists recognize two types of rationality: instrumental and epistemic. The simplest definition of instrumental rationality-the one that emphasizes most that it is grounded in the practical world-is: Behaving in the world so that you get exactly what you most want, given the resources (physical and mental) available to you…

E una razionalità epistemica…

… The other aspect of rationality studied by cognitive scientists is termed epistemic rationality. This aspect of rationality concerns how well beliefs map onto the actual structure of the world.'…

La prima ci aiuta a muoverci, la seconda ci fornisce una mappa. Ebbene, specialmente la seconda sembrerebbe svincolata dall’intelligenza del soggetto.

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Avete presente cos’è la dislessia?…

… We can see the discrepancy notion at work in, for example, the diagnostic criterion for developmental reading disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV (DSM IV) of the American Psychiatric Association. The criterion for reading disorder is: "Reading achievement that falls substantially below that expected given the individual's chronological age, measured intelligence, and age-appropriate education"…

Una capacità che manca anche in presenza di mezzi adeguati.

Lo stesso dicasi per la discalcolia…

… So, similarly, the diagnostic criterion for mathematics disorder (sometimes termed dyscalculia) in DSM IV is that "Mathematical ability that falls substantially below that expected for the individual's chronological age, measured intelligence, and age-appropriate education" (p. 50)…

Su questa linea è il caso di aggiungere la dysrationalia…

… Dysrationalia is the inability to think and behave rationally despite adequate intelligence. It is a general term that refers to a heterogeneous group of disorders manifested by significant difficulties in belief formation, in the assessment of belief consistency, and/or in the determination of action to achieve one's goals…

Quando si prendono sistematicamente decisioni stupide pur in presenza di un decisore intelligente, parliamo di un disturbo specifico: la dysrationalia.

Che si voglia o meno medicalizzare questo disturbo è qui irrilevante, a noi serve solo per chiarire lo iato che separa intelligenza e razionalità.

Idiocracy

Secondo Alex Tabarrok viviamo tempi in cui la Ragione è sotto attacco. Lo afferma nel saggio “Is Capitalism Making Us Stupid?”

Da sinistra…

… who deride it as phallocentric and imperialist…

E da destra…

… who deride it as being for pointy-headed nerds who pale beside gutsy “deciders.”…

Ma forse questa è roba del passato, del secolo scorso. Senonché, la musica non sembra cambiata di molto, l’uomo viene spesso descritto come “prevedibilmente irrazionale”…

… psychologists such as Dan Ariely and Jonathan Haidt tell us that we aren’t very rational anyway, we are predictably irrational and a slave to our passions…

Per altri l’intuizione è tutto…

… while writers like David Brooks and Malcolm Gladwell valorize intuition and the power of the unconscious…

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A difesa della Ragione è sceso in campo  un peso massimo come Joseph Heath con il suo libro Enlightenment 2.0. …

… Heath argues that reason faces attack not only from ideological opponents but also from commercial. Heath gives us an interesting analysis of the classic underground movie, Idiocracy…

Per Heath, la società commerciale – con il suo profluvio di pubblicità – contribuirebbe al nostro rimbambimento.

Ma Heath sembra considerare un solo aspetto della faccenda…

… nevertheless, by focusing on advertising, Heath sees only one facet of the relationship between markets and rationality. Markets may want and sometimes even generate irrational consumers but markets also want and sometimes even generate rational producers.  Work is where rationality is most evident in our lives and, by and large, markets reward education, IQ and reasoning ability…

Non siamo solo “consumatori rimbambiti” ma “consumatori che devono difendersi” e soprattutto produttori tenuti a conoscere tutti i trucchi da sfruttare.

Infatti, mai come oggi la razionalità e l’intelligenza vengono premiati dal mercato.

Al contrario di quel che pensa Heath, la società commerciale sembrerebbe un ambiente stimolante per le nostre intelligenze. Non a caso le misurazione dell’ IQ segnano un’ impennata.

La sempre maggior richiesta di efficienza è un baluardo contro l’irrazionalità…

… I share Heath’s concern but think it important to emphasize that on balance, capitalism and its demand for efficiency, productivity and growth is one of our strongest defenses against the irrational…

Secondo Heath la difesa della Ragione pertiene alla Sinistra…

… Heath also thinks that, on balance, reason supports the left, which is one motivating factor in his attack on conservatism and the irrationality of appeals to religion and intuition. Thus it’s a problem for Heath that the most prominent exponent of both reason and capitalism in the twentieth century was novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand… t’s also worth noting that of the three political groupings in America today—conservatives, liberals and libertarians—it’s the libertarians who are the most rational…

Come spiega allora il fatto che il mondo che più la esalta è quello libertario (ovvero i fan della società commerciale)?

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Ma cio’ che più preoccupa Heath è la nostra irrazionalità in politica…

… Heath is also too sanguine about the role of politics. Irrationality in politics is more severe than in markets because of two problems, rational ignorance and rational irrationality…

Ci sarebbe da fare una differenza tra la nostra irrazionalità sul mercato e la nostra irrazionalità politica, purtroppo Heath sorvola…

… if the tools of propaganda are the same in markets and politics, why are the results so different? Expanding waistlines in the former, and death and destruction in the latter? Most importantly, firms may try to trick us by appeal to the bugs and heuristics of our unreasoning mind but politics has access to the ultimate override of reason, force…

In politica facciamo pagare il conto delle nostre scelte (irrazionali) ad altri, e questo non puo’ che amplificare l’attitudine alla superficialità ideologica.

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Heath passa poi alle proposte. Delusione…

… in markets, Heath offers as his paradigmatic example of a solution….New York City’s ban on selling soda in cups larger than 16 ounces…

Difficile pensare che la grande battaglia per la razionalità possa essere combattuta tassando le bevande zuccherose.

Occorrono soluzioni più radicali. Per esempio, quando il decisore paga, si trasforma in un essere più razionale. Sfruttiamo questo fatto!…

… Partisan bias greatly diminishes when voters are told that they will be paid if they answer correctly. Betting is a more reliable guarantor of objectivity than voting. Or, as I once wrote, “A bet is a tax on bullshit…

In fondo anche Heath non sembra crederci: la razionalità dell’uomo è esigua e destinata a rimanere tale. L’ Illuminismo tanto invocato si riduce  in realtà a quello di un’avanguardia chiamata a guidare il gregge. La storia sembra passata invano.