This Guy Perfectly Explains How Absurd Someone Sounds When They Try To Deny Science With ‘Common Sense’ By Using Analogy Of Chess
We’ve all met them, we’ve been around them and we’ve probably judged them as well—people who are the least competent think that they’re the best. They will offer you their opinions on politics, economy, and social issues even though you never asked them. They’ll tell you the best route to get to point B, they will overestimate their skills and sometimes even belittle you for not agreeing with them. They’re the smart ones, after all. It is the Dunning Kruger effect in all its glory, and I think it’s safe to say that the majority of us have witnessed it unfold in real life at one point or another.
Recently, one writer from Bristol, UK put this idea into a now-viral Facebook post. He took an example of an inexperienced chess player playing the game with an expert. Naturally, the inexperienced one will lose. But what does it mean? Scroll down below to check how Tom Denton explains it.
More info: Facebook
One man recently explained just “how stupid we all actually are”
Image credits: michael_swan
While Tom’s Facebook post did go viral, not everyone was in agreement with him. “That’s not science, not science at all. Like at all,” one social media user commented. “Whoever wrote this up is not a grandmaster of thought,” another one added. But we think that you should decide for yourself before jumping to conclusions.
Over 1,000 people liked the post and it quickly spread onto other social media platforms as well
Image credits: ThomasTangoDeltaDenton
Most Facebook users loved the analogy
But people weren’t so agreeable on Imgur
117Kviews
Share on FacebookComparison to a five year old is remarkably accurate. Small soft hands, has to use both hands to drink out of glass rather than a sippy cup. Can't resist running down a ramp. Is always the best!
He is indeed like a child that never learned anything, and worse, surrounded himself only with people who will praise him for a paycheck.
Load More Replies...Well, to me it's "common sense" that an expert knows better and I. So, you might question what they say, but to straight out deny, without pursuing any further insights from more professional sources, and with a closed mind, that's against the common sense they so much refer to.
A lot of people just believe the liars and people intentionally misleading them because that's what they want to hear. It seems like confirmation bias at its worst. Right now my elderly parents accept any good news as the truth because they still don't grasp that a pandemic is a serious issue.
Load More Replies...I don't think the analogy holds. Every moderately good chessplayer would beat me handily in every chess game I played with them, but not every 'expert' offers the same opinion. A very good friend of mine is a PhD microbiologist, works for a large pharmaceutical. He believes that the whole COVID thing is overblown and that the government is using it to assert control. "Experts" certainly have more understanding than most of us, but the premise that all of them are going to have more correct opinions than the rest of us simply doesn't hold.
There are many types of microbiologists, and not all of their specialties are relevant to the discussion of a viral pathogen. For instance, if your friend specialized in parasitology, or mycology, they aren't necessarily in-the-know regarding respiratory diseases.
Load More Replies...There's nothing wrong with a lay-person making an assumption that policy "defies common sense" so long as that lay-person uses the experience as an opportunity to research a topic, gain more knowledge and at least come to appreciate the complexity which other people understand much more fully. Saying that the Earth is round might defy someones common sense, rather than inform them of their medieval stupidity, show them evidence that they can process, such as being unable to see the far shore of a body of water which is known to have a shore all the way around. Etc.
The problem is, some people will choose to stay blind even with all the evidence right there before their eyes. And these are, sadly, the loudest.
Load More Replies...I don't think this is a good analogy at all. At all. Not even slightly. Chess has a winner/loser while the scientific situations are not as defined as winner/loser. A chess player just has to an expert in the game of chess - how to win, but a scientist has much more diversified knowledge to be a expert in their field. For example, a scientist advising on global warming needs knowledge from many science disciplines. There is continuing research and discoveries in science, not in chess. You can disprove a scientific theory - not so with chess. And scientists are not infallible - they can be biased or downright wrong and this cannot be compared to a Grandmaster chess champion's role.
For all those reasons, the difference between an expert scientist and a layperson is even greater than the difference between a chess grand master and an untrained child. There is so much more depth of knowledge & experience required to be a top-tier scientist than a chess grand master.
Load More Replies...The real problem is that people don't understand science. Among other things, one of the big advantages of taking a scientific approach is that you are constantly trying to figure out where you are wrong. In short, science doesn't prove. Rather it's disproves. So when new information is presented, it has to go back and change what the information at the time was suggesting. This causes a lot of problems for people that don't understand how this works. Science is (and should be) constantly changing as new information becomes available. The general public (and internet) has a hard time with this. They like their world in a neat little package that is never changing and you can be for or against. Which is why science tends to be ignored in spite of all the evidence of its success.
And none of the less knowledgeable people the OP is talking about will ever read, much less understand what he wrote.
I like the post, but I gotta say, there are times science was proven wrong. However, science is willing to change based on evidence.
I'm afraid I have to agree with the people who were less than impressed. This is science in the same way a Big Mac is haute cuisine.
You're right about that, it isn't a scientific approach. Ironically, what they wrote is common sense.
Load More Replies...That's not science, that's experience. Which is also where common sense comes from (how did OP relate it to 'untrained thinking'?). People who are trying to argue with experts by claiming "it's common sense", despite the scientific/historic proof contradicting them, are people who have no idea, but are using the smartest defence they know to try and validate their opinions. When an expert tells you it's common sense, they tend to have the evidence to back their remark. When someone fights an expert with their "common sense", they usually ramble on with nonsensical BS that cannot be supported with evidence. To put it simply, if Dr. Fauci says wearing a mask to prevent Covid is common sense, he'll have proof. If Donald Trump disagrees, and says ingesting bleach is common sense, he won't have proof, but one of his aides will cover it up by claiming he was joking.
It takes a little more than "common sense" to realize "common sense" has limits. Most people won't trouble themselves with the extra effort.
As a character in a Pratchett book once said "the problem with common sense is that it's not that common."
Load More Replies...I always go with common sense and I have the common sense to listen to people who trained to know what I don't
It is a dangerous thing to say that we should not question science. Claiming infallibility should be the realm of religions, not a collection of knowledge.
Not that I disagree with the overall premise, this sounds an awful lot like a "no true Scotsman" appeal. Experts, regardless of their field or expertise, are not infallible. It also ignores... what I shall call... "human nature". They have within them all the foibles (for lack of another word at the moment) that every human possesses. This is not weakness, nor sin, nor imperfection. It is just nature. Then there are... "exceptions to the rules", shall we say. The savant who can beat the GM in their first game. FWIW, none of this is intended to mean experts should be ignored or to justify the rampant idiocy going on in the U.S.
It seems to me that that "human nature" will destroy humanity before it destroys our planet and all other life it supports. Not fair.
Load More Replies...This is an incorrect analogy when it comes to public policy. There is no contemporary issue that we face i.e. Education, Criminal Justice, Immigration, Financial Policy, or even COVID 19 related issues that lends itself directly to solution through scientific analysis or the application of agreed upon scientific data.
That guy is making one big mistake: Assuming that logical reasoning and thinking is a way to convince experts that have studied Facebook, Youtube and other conspiracy and misinformation sources for years...
Ever since the advent of the internet, the average person can now convince themselves that they can be as knowledgeable about fields they have no real experience in, and in turn question the actual experts.
And what is worse is that unless someone is educated or well-read on a particular topic, that person probably cannot differentiate between advice from a genuine credentialed expert versus that from a huckster or an ill-informed echo chamber.
Load More Replies...It is like poker in that the house (in this case the Earth) always wins and She doesn't bluff.
......I'm afraid that at the end the Earth might lose. The Earth gave humans many warnings, but they never learn. I think that humanity will destroy the Earth before she could destroy humanity.
Load More Replies...Giving that the grandmaster would easily defeat his opponent, it would also be easy for him to manipulate the game and even cheat if so desired. I agree that experience is key... it's also why we all need too play the proverbial game of chess so we can learn from our mistakes. Eventually becoming the seasoned expert.
So why exactly would the Grandmaster need to manipulate the game or cheat, if he could easily defeat the opponent with skill alone? Is this you trying to push some kind of ulterior motive, conspiracy theory to be able to deny their expertise if you don't like what they say? Also, you do understand that chess is an analogy, and that "playing the proverbial game of chess" to eventually become a "seasoned expert" in a field like astrophysics or virology would involve years of study at accredited institutions and not reading a few Facebook posts or watching a dozen YouTube videos put out by random strangers. This path will NEVER make you a "seasoned expert", just another Dunning-Kruger victim who nowTHINKS he's got the skills to debate reality with the person who spent years earning his expertise.
Load More Replies...While I agree with the point, I have to nitpick that the final analogy of someone the level of Ramanujan or Collier is a bit too much of a stretch to hold the comparison together. They were undeniable geniuses in their fields well beyond even the average experts in those fields. Yes, they would be 100 out of 100 in wins over most people. However, many topics are too diverse to be compared to chess in such a way. There are IT experts, medical experts, business experts. etc. of all types within their respective fields and I can attest that they all come from very diverse backgrounds of education and experience. This gives them all different perspectives and ways of viewing situations. Not all are specialists in every area of a field and so not all should be weighted equally. Also, considering the diverse nature of the layperson's background, it may not be accurate to say they can't see a problem from an angle and a solution in a way that another person just can't see. Engineers have been trumped by average joe's stupidly simple solutions to complex problems in the past so it's not always appropriate to claim authority is infallible. That's literally a fallacy of argument called false appeal to authority where it's assumed that an expert can't be wrong, which we know is wrong since all humans err.
Hate to break the news to anyone still confused, but one needn’t be a chess player to avoid idiocy.
Wow, what a great point. You know it’s true because the conclusions reached through thorough scientific research and study are never wrong. “And knowing is half the battle.” - G.I. Joe
That last post is correct in that the real world is like poker, not chess. In chess, you always have complete and perfect information at your disposal and you can succeed based upon your knowledge of chess theory and your tactical abilities. Nothing is hidden from you and there are no random events. But in poker, you have to deal with the uncertainty of incomplete, uneven and unreliable information on which to base your decisions, as well as the randomness of the draw, and you have to maintain control over your emotions and biases to succeed more often than not. Just like life.
I think thecircus (last comment in the article) is half right and half wrong - they suggest that real life is more like poker, where the expert may lose some hands (ie, luck plays a big role too). I would amend that: the top-rated "grandmaster" experts never will, or at least will know when their conclusions are just guesses. However unlike in chess, in real life we cannot tell the difference between regular experts and grandmaster experts. That's why there are conflicting scientific opinions and it's tough to figure out who to listen to, because they are all much smarter within their field than a regular person.
True, but wouldn't the best decision be to trust that whoever is on the side of the majority view of the experts is probably right?
Load More Replies...Chess comparision is briliant here. Looking ahead is a necessary skill. Although chess has it quite linear – after all, life is dynamic and not static like the board game – it’s a good skill to have. Make predictions and watch the quality of life of you and everyone around you increase. This the best argument, that chess is the best tool to teach your kids everything. I really can recommend a book, which is very good to teach kids how to play chess, writen by Makism Aksanov (net-boss.org/chess-puzzles-for-kids-by-maksim-aksanov). it's very easy to teach with all the fun and play, and make with this game a very rich, fantasy world for our kids :)
Sorry but when the WHO is clueless ( just receintly forced to accept the scientific fact that this is an airbourne pathogen)...and mismanaged alot of corona stragedy...from mask or no mask to how long it last on surfaces etc....so who can blame a common man when the top scientist are acting like the three stooges
To be fair, part of the problem is that a number of people on TV are claiming to be experts and only those of us with a science or medical background can tell which people are full of c**p. When in doubt try to find reputable resources (like actual peer reviewed research papers using "google scholar") and also consider what might be the motivation of the individual making a statement, for example: in February and March it was known that masks/PPE helped stop the spread of COVID-19 but hospitals had so few masks that the general public was discouraged from buying them. Masks have always been known to help but now further research shows they REALLY make a difference in spreading the virus, so now we are all encouraged to wear at least some sort of mask while still saving medical grade N95s for healthcare workers.
Load More Replies...and they're the ones having temper tantrums?
Load More Replies...Comparison to a five year old is remarkably accurate. Small soft hands, has to use both hands to drink out of glass rather than a sippy cup. Can't resist running down a ramp. Is always the best!
He is indeed like a child that never learned anything, and worse, surrounded himself only with people who will praise him for a paycheck.
Load More Replies...Well, to me it's "common sense" that an expert knows better and I. So, you might question what they say, but to straight out deny, without pursuing any further insights from more professional sources, and with a closed mind, that's against the common sense they so much refer to.
A lot of people just believe the liars and people intentionally misleading them because that's what they want to hear. It seems like confirmation bias at its worst. Right now my elderly parents accept any good news as the truth because they still don't grasp that a pandemic is a serious issue.
Load More Replies...I don't think the analogy holds. Every moderately good chessplayer would beat me handily in every chess game I played with them, but not every 'expert' offers the same opinion. A very good friend of mine is a PhD microbiologist, works for a large pharmaceutical. He believes that the whole COVID thing is overblown and that the government is using it to assert control. "Experts" certainly have more understanding than most of us, but the premise that all of them are going to have more correct opinions than the rest of us simply doesn't hold.
There are many types of microbiologists, and not all of their specialties are relevant to the discussion of a viral pathogen. For instance, if your friend specialized in parasitology, or mycology, they aren't necessarily in-the-know regarding respiratory diseases.
Load More Replies...There's nothing wrong with a lay-person making an assumption that policy "defies common sense" so long as that lay-person uses the experience as an opportunity to research a topic, gain more knowledge and at least come to appreciate the complexity which other people understand much more fully. Saying that the Earth is round might defy someones common sense, rather than inform them of their medieval stupidity, show them evidence that they can process, such as being unable to see the far shore of a body of water which is known to have a shore all the way around. Etc.
The problem is, some people will choose to stay blind even with all the evidence right there before their eyes. And these are, sadly, the loudest.
Load More Replies...I don't think this is a good analogy at all. At all. Not even slightly. Chess has a winner/loser while the scientific situations are not as defined as winner/loser. A chess player just has to an expert in the game of chess - how to win, but a scientist has much more diversified knowledge to be a expert in their field. For example, a scientist advising on global warming needs knowledge from many science disciplines. There is continuing research and discoveries in science, not in chess. You can disprove a scientific theory - not so with chess. And scientists are not infallible - they can be biased or downright wrong and this cannot be compared to a Grandmaster chess champion's role.
For all those reasons, the difference between an expert scientist and a layperson is even greater than the difference between a chess grand master and an untrained child. There is so much more depth of knowledge & experience required to be a top-tier scientist than a chess grand master.
Load More Replies...The real problem is that people don't understand science. Among other things, one of the big advantages of taking a scientific approach is that you are constantly trying to figure out where you are wrong. In short, science doesn't prove. Rather it's disproves. So when new information is presented, it has to go back and change what the information at the time was suggesting. This causes a lot of problems for people that don't understand how this works. Science is (and should be) constantly changing as new information becomes available. The general public (and internet) has a hard time with this. They like their world in a neat little package that is never changing and you can be for or against. Which is why science tends to be ignored in spite of all the evidence of its success.
And none of the less knowledgeable people the OP is talking about will ever read, much less understand what he wrote.
I like the post, but I gotta say, there are times science was proven wrong. However, science is willing to change based on evidence.
I'm afraid I have to agree with the people who were less than impressed. This is science in the same way a Big Mac is haute cuisine.
You're right about that, it isn't a scientific approach. Ironically, what they wrote is common sense.
Load More Replies...That's not science, that's experience. Which is also where common sense comes from (how did OP relate it to 'untrained thinking'?). People who are trying to argue with experts by claiming "it's common sense", despite the scientific/historic proof contradicting them, are people who have no idea, but are using the smartest defence they know to try and validate their opinions. When an expert tells you it's common sense, they tend to have the evidence to back their remark. When someone fights an expert with their "common sense", they usually ramble on with nonsensical BS that cannot be supported with evidence. To put it simply, if Dr. Fauci says wearing a mask to prevent Covid is common sense, he'll have proof. If Donald Trump disagrees, and says ingesting bleach is common sense, he won't have proof, but one of his aides will cover it up by claiming he was joking.
It takes a little more than "common sense" to realize "common sense" has limits. Most people won't trouble themselves with the extra effort.
As a character in a Pratchett book once said "the problem with common sense is that it's not that common."
Load More Replies...I always go with common sense and I have the common sense to listen to people who trained to know what I don't
It is a dangerous thing to say that we should not question science. Claiming infallibility should be the realm of religions, not a collection of knowledge.
Not that I disagree with the overall premise, this sounds an awful lot like a "no true Scotsman" appeal. Experts, regardless of their field or expertise, are not infallible. It also ignores... what I shall call... "human nature". They have within them all the foibles (for lack of another word at the moment) that every human possesses. This is not weakness, nor sin, nor imperfection. It is just nature. Then there are... "exceptions to the rules", shall we say. The savant who can beat the GM in their first game. FWIW, none of this is intended to mean experts should be ignored or to justify the rampant idiocy going on in the U.S.
It seems to me that that "human nature" will destroy humanity before it destroys our planet and all other life it supports. Not fair.
Load More Replies...This is an incorrect analogy when it comes to public policy. There is no contemporary issue that we face i.e. Education, Criminal Justice, Immigration, Financial Policy, or even COVID 19 related issues that lends itself directly to solution through scientific analysis or the application of agreed upon scientific data.
That guy is making one big mistake: Assuming that logical reasoning and thinking is a way to convince experts that have studied Facebook, Youtube and other conspiracy and misinformation sources for years...
Ever since the advent of the internet, the average person can now convince themselves that they can be as knowledgeable about fields they have no real experience in, and in turn question the actual experts.
And what is worse is that unless someone is educated or well-read on a particular topic, that person probably cannot differentiate between advice from a genuine credentialed expert versus that from a huckster or an ill-informed echo chamber.
Load More Replies...It is like poker in that the house (in this case the Earth) always wins and She doesn't bluff.
......I'm afraid that at the end the Earth might lose. The Earth gave humans many warnings, but they never learn. I think that humanity will destroy the Earth before she could destroy humanity.
Load More Replies...Giving that the grandmaster would easily defeat his opponent, it would also be easy for him to manipulate the game and even cheat if so desired. I agree that experience is key... it's also why we all need too play the proverbial game of chess so we can learn from our mistakes. Eventually becoming the seasoned expert.
So why exactly would the Grandmaster need to manipulate the game or cheat, if he could easily defeat the opponent with skill alone? Is this you trying to push some kind of ulterior motive, conspiracy theory to be able to deny their expertise if you don't like what they say? Also, you do understand that chess is an analogy, and that "playing the proverbial game of chess" to eventually become a "seasoned expert" in a field like astrophysics or virology would involve years of study at accredited institutions and not reading a few Facebook posts or watching a dozen YouTube videos put out by random strangers. This path will NEVER make you a "seasoned expert", just another Dunning-Kruger victim who nowTHINKS he's got the skills to debate reality with the person who spent years earning his expertise.
Load More Replies...While I agree with the point, I have to nitpick that the final analogy of someone the level of Ramanujan or Collier is a bit too much of a stretch to hold the comparison together. They were undeniable geniuses in their fields well beyond even the average experts in those fields. Yes, they would be 100 out of 100 in wins over most people. However, many topics are too diverse to be compared to chess in such a way. There are IT experts, medical experts, business experts. etc. of all types within their respective fields and I can attest that they all come from very diverse backgrounds of education and experience. This gives them all different perspectives and ways of viewing situations. Not all are specialists in every area of a field and so not all should be weighted equally. Also, considering the diverse nature of the layperson's background, it may not be accurate to say they can't see a problem from an angle and a solution in a way that another person just can't see. Engineers have been trumped by average joe's stupidly simple solutions to complex problems in the past so it's not always appropriate to claim authority is infallible. That's literally a fallacy of argument called false appeal to authority where it's assumed that an expert can't be wrong, which we know is wrong since all humans err.
Hate to break the news to anyone still confused, but one needn’t be a chess player to avoid idiocy.
Wow, what a great point. You know it’s true because the conclusions reached through thorough scientific research and study are never wrong. “And knowing is half the battle.” - G.I. Joe
That last post is correct in that the real world is like poker, not chess. In chess, you always have complete and perfect information at your disposal and you can succeed based upon your knowledge of chess theory and your tactical abilities. Nothing is hidden from you and there are no random events. But in poker, you have to deal with the uncertainty of incomplete, uneven and unreliable information on which to base your decisions, as well as the randomness of the draw, and you have to maintain control over your emotions and biases to succeed more often than not. Just like life.
I think thecircus (last comment in the article) is half right and half wrong - they suggest that real life is more like poker, where the expert may lose some hands (ie, luck plays a big role too). I would amend that: the top-rated "grandmaster" experts never will, or at least will know when their conclusions are just guesses. However unlike in chess, in real life we cannot tell the difference between regular experts and grandmaster experts. That's why there are conflicting scientific opinions and it's tough to figure out who to listen to, because they are all much smarter within their field than a regular person.
True, but wouldn't the best decision be to trust that whoever is on the side of the majority view of the experts is probably right?
Load More Replies...Chess comparision is briliant here. Looking ahead is a necessary skill. Although chess has it quite linear – after all, life is dynamic and not static like the board game – it’s a good skill to have. Make predictions and watch the quality of life of you and everyone around you increase. This the best argument, that chess is the best tool to teach your kids everything. I really can recommend a book, which is very good to teach kids how to play chess, writen by Makism Aksanov (net-boss.org/chess-puzzles-for-kids-by-maksim-aksanov). it's very easy to teach with all the fun and play, and make with this game a very rich, fantasy world for our kids :)
Sorry but when the WHO is clueless ( just receintly forced to accept the scientific fact that this is an airbourne pathogen)...and mismanaged alot of corona stragedy...from mask or no mask to how long it last on surfaces etc....so who can blame a common man when the top scientist are acting like the three stooges
To be fair, part of the problem is that a number of people on TV are claiming to be experts and only those of us with a science or medical background can tell which people are full of c**p. When in doubt try to find reputable resources (like actual peer reviewed research papers using "google scholar") and also consider what might be the motivation of the individual making a statement, for example: in February and March it was known that masks/PPE helped stop the spread of COVID-19 but hospitals had so few masks that the general public was discouraged from buying them. Masks have always been known to help but now further research shows they REALLY make a difference in spreading the virus, so now we are all encouraged to wear at least some sort of mask while still saving medical grade N95s for healthcare workers.
Load More Replies...and they're the ones having temper tantrums?
Load More Replies...
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