IQ and rationality

I'm reading about the distinction between intelligence and rationality these days:

What Intelligence Tests Miss: The Psychology of Rational Thought
by Keith E. Stanovich

There's one aspect of the book that I'd like to comment on so far:

Intelligence has to do with the processing power of the brain. Rationality has to do with how we form our beliefs.

In other (my) words: You don't have to be unintelligent to believe that you're safer with a gun in your house, or that lower taxes are always better. You just have to be irrational.

What do I mean with irrational? It's a lot of things, but an important element is our common tendency to be more impressed by evidence that supports our worldview, than by evidence that contradicts it.

Let's start with the pistols and revolvers. Of course, it's easy to create in our minds a scenario where you're safer with a gun in your house than without it. "You hear an intruder. You have time to find your gun and load it before the intruder finds it. You know how to use it effectively and responsibly, even when your adrenaline is sky high. The intruder is either unarmed or unprepared." And at the end of the story, you are the hero, unhurt, and the intruder is either dead, wounded or (hopefully just) in chains.

The problem is that this scenario is far more appealing than it is likely. Most people are shot by their own family members or by acquaintances, or by themselves. Not by intruders. If you let objective statistics, and not your wishful thinking be your guide, you'll know that having a gun in your house is far more likely to get you or one of your loved ones shot, than to protect them from getting shot.

As for the taxes, of course it's tempting to believe that we get richer, the more of "our" earnings we're allowed to keep. If you let objective statistics be your guide, however, you'll see that the easiest way to get richer is to live in a rich society, and that rich societies on average have higher tax rates. This doesn't prove that higher taxes will make you rich, but it does suggest, at least to me, that that it's pure wishful thinking to imagine that "my" earnings are "mine", and to forget that the opportunity to make so much wasn't a free lunch.

If you sort the lists of countries by GDP (adjusted for purchasing power) and tax rates (as percentages of GDP), the poorest 25 have an average tax rate of 13,6%, and the richest 25 have 37,2%. Coincidence? Hardly.

History is awash with politicians idealists: People whose grandiose, but irrational beliefs caught on with the masses, and ended up creating major disasters. Marx? Lenin? Hitler? I believe that they all belonged to that category.

If you want to comment on this thread, please let the thread be one of dialogue ("yes, and......"), not debate ("no, because...."). One question I'd like your opinions on, is who the 3 most popular politicians or political movements today are, that stand out by the irrationality of their beliefs?

:-J



Top 25 countries by GDP (adjusted by purchasing power)

GDP Tax Country GDP Tax as % of GDP
rank rank
1 151 Luxemb. 57.640 36,40
2 172 Norway 56.050 43,60
3 47 Singap. 49.850 13,00
4 126 USA 46.730 28,20
5 163 Netherl. 40.510 39,50
6 177 Sweden 38.560 49,70
7 170 Austria 38.550 43,40
8 133 Australia 38.210 30,50
9 150 Denmark 37.720 50,00
10 139 Canada 37.590 33,40
11 161 UK 37.360 39,00
12 99 Germany 36.960 40,60
13 175 Belgium 36.520 46,80
14 100 Finland 34.430 43,60
15 171 France 33.980 46,10
16 165 Iceland 33.390 40,40
17 144 Ireland 33.280 34,00
17 122 Japan 33.280 27,40
19 158 Spain 31.630 37,30
20 168 Italy 31.330 42,60
21 93 Greece 28.440 33,50
22 117 Korea S 27.310 26,80
23 154 Israel 27.040 36,80
24 162 Slovenia 26.340 39,30
25 124 Trin.&Tob. 25.100 28,00
26 153 Czech R. 23.610 36,30
27 156 Portugal 22.870 37,00
28 129 Slovakia 21.600 29,50


Bottom 25 countries by GDP

GDP Tax Country GDP Tax as % of GDP
rank rank
156 50 Liberia 290 13,20
155 40 Congo,DR 300 13,20
154 75 Burundi 390 17,40
153 35 Niger 660 11,00
152 19 C.African R 750 7,70
151 92 Malawi 760 20,70
150 27 S.Leone 790 10,50
149 68 Togo 850 15,50
148 52 Mozamb. 880 13,40
147 134 Ethiopia 930 11,60
146 56 Rwanda 1.060 14,10
145 36 Burkina F. 1.170 11,50
144 33 Nepal 1.180 10,90
142 63 Mali 1.190 15,30
142 45 Uganda 1.190 12,60
141 8 Chad 1.230 4,20
140 71 Zambia 1.280 16,10
139 106 Comoros 1.300 12,00
138 26 Gambiae 1.330 18,90
137 42 Tanzania 1.350 12,00
136 166 Ghana 1.480 20,80
135 65 Benin 1.510 15,40
134 83 Kenya 1.570 18,40
133 22 Banglad. 1.580 8,50
132 54 Côte d'Ivoire 1.640 15,30

Source: Wikipedia
Selection: Countries with data in both columns