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Being Smart and Being Wrong

September 24th, 2009 · 2 Comments

by Dwayne Phillips

Quick, read the following and agree or disagree:

Smart people are wrong more often than stupid people.

I believe the above is true. It seems that smart people read, study, think, and propose ideas more often than stupid people. Stupid people seem to sit around and choose-your-own-stupid-activity (e.g. watch TV, surf the net, take a nap…).

An example with some numbers.

Smart Person:

  • 5% error rate
  • 1,000 proposed ideas
  • Wrong 50 times

Stupid Person:

  • 20% error rate
  • 100 proposed ideas
  • Wrong 20 times

See, the smart person is wrong more often than the stupid person.

Consider this the next time you wish so-and-so would stop with the wrong ideas.

Tags: Learning · Logic · People

2 responses so far ↓

  • 1 David P Himes // Sep 24, 2009 at 8:53 am

    But the opposite is also true, smart people are also right more often than stupid people.

    Goes to show you can prove anything with statistics. And thus, statistics are useless to prove anything.

  • 2 Rhonda Cox // Sep 24, 2009 at 10:37 am

    Love your logic! Guess that explains alot about how often I put my foot in my mouth and piss people off…

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