Mindconnection eNL, 2005-10-09

Past issues

In this issue:

1. Product highlights
2. Brainpower tip
3. Time tip
4. Finance tip

5. Security tips
6. Health tip/Fitness tip
7. Miscellany
8. Thought for the day

Here's a quote from that book: "A good number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also stupid." Remember, this is a quote from one of history's greatest scientists. I think another way of saying this is, "To become a scientist, you need merely slog your way through a school that is cognizant of the money you are spending to do so, until you finally graduate."

One point I think Watson was making (this is my opinion--yours may differ) was a person's field  field or academic credentials--no matter how lofty--do not necessarily reflect that person's mental sharpness.

If an "expert" states a point you don't understand or agree with, what should you do? Well, assuming you have a learner's attitude and want to know the truth, you ask that person to explain. If the reply is disdainful or consists of a personal attack, you have a clear sign that person doesn't know what s/he is talking about and is just being defensive. But a knowledgeable person will be able to reply with some facts and rational arguments.

Sometimes that knowledge is incorrect, though. For example, doctors constantly admonish people not to eat eggs. Their "rationale" for this is that eggs raise your cholesterol. In fact, eggs do the opposite (assuming you are eating eggs laid by healthy chickens and not the cheap eggs laid by chickens confined in 2x2 cages stacked 14 high in a dark and drafty henhouse).

The "knowledge" these doctors depend on is hearsay. Someone at some convention made the assumption that eating a cholesterol-containing food raises serum cholesterol, and threw that unproven assumption onto a PowerPoint slide. Like a cancer, this falsehood spread. And it became widely accepted as fact. But no study has ever shown this falsehood to be true. In fact, cholesterol cannot survive passage through the stomach.

A key piece of information is also missing, in this assumption. Eggs (non-factory ones) are very high in omega 3 fatty acids. The same doctor who tells you to buy expensive fish oil or flaxseed oil--also tells you not to buy relatively inexpensive free-range eggs. But the eggs are even better sources of omega 3 than the fish or flax!

So, what's going on here? Simply, too many people are too lazy to challenge an assertion that their group (whatever their group may be) accepts. Watson observed that many of his peers were one-trick dogs simply following rote and hardly moving their cerebral cortexes from "idle."

If trained scientists are often dull and stupid, what does that say about people who don't even have that training? Only that stupidity is no respecter of training or position. But then, neither is smartness. It's really a choice--the default, however, is dullness and stupidity. You have to consciously choose to be smart.

To make the "smart" choice, you've got to decide to be discerning as to what you will accept as fact. Here are some pointers to get you started:

• Compare "new" facts to known facts.
• Ask probing questions.
• Look for generalities--these seldom hold up.
• Think of exceptions--these disprove blanket statements)
• Develop parallels. That is, look for similar situations--just don't carry analogies and metaphors too far.
• Look for extremes. Take the logic to its furthest conclusion.
• Ask, "What if we all did that?"