recognizing good ideas

I've had a few conversations recently that centered around the idea of debate. We've all had those discussions about politics or religion or something else people are guaranteed to disagree on, where it moves past the basic "I don't agree" and becomes a bit of a debate. Now when I find myself in that kind of discussion, I use the same approach every time. Well, recently, I was told my approach is "bullying" because I expect somebody I'm having a debate with to understand basic logic. Essentially, this person's point was that it's unfair to expect people to have a baseline grasp of concepts like fallacies or valid inference.

It would seem to me that it's exactly that kind of thinking that gives carte blanche to the kind of irrational, instinct-driven discourse prevalent in our society. People are not, by nature, particularly reasonable. A psychological study in 1999 showed that "people who lack the knowledge or wisdom to perform well are often unaware of this fact. That is, the same incompetence that leads them to make wrong choices also deprives them of the savvy necessary to recognize competence, be it their own or anyone else's." This would seem like common sense, but the study also found that competent people overestimated the intelligence of their peers.

Basically, stupid people think they're smarter than most people and smart people think most people are as smart as them. This kind of environment has a built in advantage for incompetent people as they inflate the importance and validity of their ideas relative to others while competent people give them the benefit of the doubt. That kind of dynamic requires the application of logic and rational thinking to separate good ideas from bad; effective from ineffective. Only then can progress be made.

Good thoughts to keep in mind as the presidential debates loom.