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We Are All Confident Idiots

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Re: We Are All Confident Idiots

#41

Post by lucio »

adwf wrote: post #39

I usually accredit the evolution attribution problem to the phrase "survival of the fittest". It's a catchy line, it implies that the better you are the more likely you are to survive, which is kinda true, but leads to the mistaken agency issue. It has the additional benefit of aligning with the ethic of hard work (ie. do better to survive) that we also try to teach kids, which I think is one of the reasons it persis…

It is not just a spin? "survival of the fittest" is exactly the same as "death to the weakest".

"survival of the fittest" = "not survival of the not-fit"

And also "fit" it is not the same as "strong"

Re: We Are All Confident Idiots

#42

Post by adwf »

lucio wrote: post #41
adwf wrote: post #39

I usually accredit the evolution attribution problem to the phrase "survival of the fittest". It's a catchy line, it implies that the better you are the more likely you are to survive, which is kinda true, but leads to the mistaken agency issue. It has the additional benefit of aligning with the ethic of hard work (ie. do better to survive) that we also try to teach kids, which I think is one of the reasons it persis…

It is not just a spin? "survival of the fittest" is exactly the same as "death to the weakest". "survival of the fittest" = "not survival of the not-fit" And also "fit" it is not the same as "strong"

Yes it is spin, but not just spin. "Survive" often implies some sort of agency, that there is some sort of struggle that was overcome and the organism is still alive. We teach survival skills. Whereas if you drop some antibiotics on a bacteria culture, there is no struggle, the bacteria that aren't already resistant just die. That's why I think the inverted phrasing is clearer in meaning (although yes I meant "weakest fit / not fit").

Re: We Are All Confident Idiots

#43

Post by sonyandy »

lucio wrote: post #41
adwf wrote: post #39

I usually accredit the evolution attribution problem to the phrase "survival of the fittest". It's a catchy line, it implies that the better you are the more likely you are to survive, which is kinda true, but leads to the mistaken agency issue. It has the additional benefit of aligning with the ethic of hard work (ie. do better to survive) that we also try to teach kids, which I think is one of the reasons it persis…

It is not just a spin? "survival of the fittest" is exactly the same as "death to the weakest". "survival of the fittest" = "not survival of the not-fit" And also "fit" it is not the same as "strong"

"survival of the fittest" is closer to "not survival of the not fittest" than "not survival of the not-fit", which is not the same as "death to the weakest".

Re: We Are All Confident Idiots

#44

Post by ttty »

lucio wrote: post #41
adwf wrote: post #39

I usually accredit the evolution attribution problem to the phrase "survival of the fittest". It's a catchy line, it implies that the better you are the more likely you are to survive, which is kinda true, but leads to the mistaken agency issue. It has the additional benefit of aligning with the ethic of hard work (ie. do better to survive) that we also try to teach kids, which I think is one of the reasons it persis…

It is not just a spin? "survival of the fittest" is exactly the same as "death to the weakest". "survival of the fittest" = "not survival of the not-fit" And also "fit" it is not the same as "strong"

    - Population: XXXOOOOVVV
    - First 3 are the weakest. (X)
    - Last 3 are the fittest. (V)
    - Middle ones are normal. (O)
When you say "survival of the fittest" you mean that only the 3 VVV survives and the other 7 OOOOVVV die.

When you say "death to the weakest" you mean that the 3 XXX die, therefore the other 7 OOOOVVV survive.

When you say "not survival of the not-fit" (I suppose you say the fittest) you mean:

    - Let's take the non-fittest (XXXOOOO)
    - Not survive of them.
Therefore you mean the death of 7 XXXOOOO and the survival of 3 VVV. So you are right that "survival of the fittest" = "not survival of the not-fit".

But "survival of the fittest" (VVV survives) is not equal to "death to the weakest" (OOOOVVV) because VVV != OOOOVVV.

Re: We Are All Confident Idiots

#46

Post by teekert »

In holland, a DJ called Giel Beelen has/had a part of his show called "Gaat ie mee of zegt ie nee.": "Will he join or will he say no." He asked a national politician about terrorist Jael Jablabla (http://nos.nl/op3/artikel/359078-pvdakamerlid-leerdam-stopt-...), about a non-existing band and about the coma of Sharon... The politician bluffed his way through, claiming he knew more about Jablabla than the DJ... and ended his career shortly afterwards.

Re: We Are All Confident Idiots

#48

Post by JulianMorrison »

adwf wrote: post #39

I usually accredit the evolution attribution problem to the phrase "survival of the fittest". It's a catchy line, it implies that the better you are the more likely you are to survive, which is kinda true, but leads to the mistaken agency issue. It has the additional benefit of aligning with the ethic of hard work (ie. do better to survive) that we also try to teach kids, which I think is one of the reasons it persis…

No, the correct way to phrase it is "survival of the fit". It's very common for limiting factors (water, calories, vitamins, etc) to have a plateau. In the range from starvation to 'enough', more ability to find food is an advantage. In the range from 'enough' to 'excess', there's no payoff. So what evolution creates is a population of surviving individuals who are each 'enough' on all their success parameters, but who embody a diverse range of ways to be 'fit'. This diversity then allows the species to handle change that leaves part of the population 'unfit'.

Very rarely, is there an absolute competition where the 'fittest' survive. That would actually drag down evolution - it would create genetic bottlenecks.

Re: We Are All Confident Idiots

#49

Post by petercooper »

teekert wrote: post #46

In holland, a DJ called Giel Beelen has/had a part of his show called "Gaat ie mee of zegt ie nee.": "Will he join or will he say no." He asked a national politician about terrorist Jael Jablabla ( http://nos.nl/op3/artikel/359078-pvdakamerlid-leerdam-stopt-... ), about a non-existing band and about the coma of Sharon... The politician bluffed his way through, claiming he knew more about Jablabla than the DJ... and e…

We had a similar thing in the UK with a famous satirist called Chris Morris who convinced a wide array of celebrities, including politicians, to say all sorts of idiotic things in a series of spoof documentaries about things like drugs and, most controversially, pedophilia. For example, he got one of the UK's most famous DJs to say that pedophiles have more genes in common with crabs than other human beings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEolSjlcqng .. in this case, the facts were fed to the celebs rather than them making them up though.

Re: We Are All Confident Idiots

#50

Post by bryanlarsen »

Dewie wrote: post #26
Swizec wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is known as the Dunning-Kruger effect[1], the cognitive bias that unskilled individuals overestimate their ability and skilled individuals underestimate it. "The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias manifesting in two principal ways: unskilled individuals tend to suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than is accurate, while highly skilled individuals tend to rate thei…

I swear this is HN's favourite bias to bring up on any topic relating to intelligence and aptitude.

Not inappropriate to bring up when the author of the original article is Dunning, though
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