We are insufficiently modest. We routinely make unsupportable claims; we depend on assumptions we cannot verify; we question things we lack the qualifications to understand. More dangerous consequences include a tendency to believe we could understand comprehensive answers to our questions, a reluctance to realize that we fall prey to cognitive errors, and a belief that there must exist a solution for every problem.
These seem to me to be strange problems for us to have. What is it that prevents us from emulating the ‘wisest man in Athens’? Isn’t it in our best interest to admit our weaknesses, so that we can make some attempt to remedy them? Isn’t it better to withhold judgment, so we can avoid jumping to the wrong conclusions? Isn’t it better, in short, to be intellectually modest?
I can think of some evolutionary explanations but, of course, they only constitute starting points in this conversation. Statistical analysis of economic (and other) outcomes shows that chance plays a far greater role in success than is readily apparent to most observers (see the works of Nassim Nicholas Taleb). As a corollary, there is a non-trivial chance that making decisions with confidence – despite a lack of support for that confidence – could pay off well enough to counterbalance the penalties for holding unfounded convictions. If so, such behavior would be selected for. As an example, consider “human intuition” – the explanation people often use when they don’t know why they were right about something – variously explained as the result of massively parallel neural net processing, human specialness, psychic powers, the guidance of God, or good luck. Isn’t it more likely that we just notice when we jumped to the correct conclusions and ignore the occasions when we do not? We each jump to so many conclusions every day that it would be startling if we didn’t sometimes jump too far and – occasionally – land on a trampoline.
Another explanatory thread arises from the lack of disincentives for intellectual immodesty; indeed, there may be incentives for such behavior. In many situations, there is a confluence of factors that reward – or fail to punish – us for being confidently wrong. If there are no voices raised in opposition, my unfounded or indefensible opinion may draw respect – social currency – from those slightly more ignorant that I. If the opinion concerns some abstract matter, there may in fact be no negative consequences for my belief, nor for the acquiescence of my audience (at least, no negative consequences that can be traced back to – or pinned to – me and my opinion). If I am right in my opinion at some frequency above my audience’s trust threshold – or remembrance of error – they will not exact much of a price from me for my occasional errors. And so many social occasions where opinions are exchanged fit these criteria: opinions on politics, on economics, on philosophy or theology – these opinions have very little consequence, in reality. They certainly have few opportunities to rebound dangerously against the holder; it’s only in science fiction that abstract opinions gain the power to mold the world in significant ways.
And so, having written this, I’ll go forth and be my normal self; but perhaps having pointed these lines of argument out (to myself) I’ll try to avoid the clamor of cognitive dissonance and police my intellectual arrogance with a little more rigor.
