Is there a name for claiming you're more intelligent
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Original Question
I generally find that people who excel at things don't tend to demonstrate it by telling you but by application , and that doesn't necessarily imply an intent to demonstrate it either.
A tennis player who doesn't win tennis matches but tells everyone he's actually very good doesn't make s very convincing case, where the tennis player who had won multiple grand slams has demonstrated his superior ability.
However sport is by nature something which reflects ability and this doesn't translate to things like intelligence where people just make use of it if appropriate. So in my experience people that tell you how intelligent they are typically overestimate their ability, and are probably doing so to try to compensate for a deficiency of some sort, where people who are intelligent don't feel any such compulsion.
So I've had an ongoing discussion with someone who uses logical fallacies, accuses scientists of making assumptions, lacking evidence, being liars, hiding or refusing to accept mistakes or obsolete understanding, etc whilst pushing creationism as reliable, supported by evidence, etc. He makes ludicrous claims and makes no attempt to justify them, instead trying to discredit science with ignorance and quote mining.
TLDR I've been discussing something with a creationist.
So without going into the details where I use reason and logic versus assertions and a lack of reason and logic, he keeps telling me how stupid I am, that I'm an example of the dunning-kruger effect (probably something a previous victim said to him and he thinks that accusing someone of that is a substitute for an argument), and that he has the upper hand because I'm incapable of thought, and just giving a general impression of superiority whilst having virtually no content.
I'm curious if there's a name for this type of "reasoning"/behaviour. Not so I can use it as an insult, if I needed to rely on insults I'd rather give up, just to further my understanding. The more I read about logical fallacies the more I understand about good and bad argument
A tennis player who doesn't win tennis matches but tells everyone he's actually very good doesn't make s very convincing case, where the tennis player who had won multiple grand slams has demonstrated his superior ability.
However sport is by nature something which reflects ability and this doesn't translate to things like intelligence where people just make use of it if appropriate. So in my experience people that tell you how intelligent they are typically overestimate their ability, and are probably doing so to try to compensate for a deficiency of some sort, where people who are intelligent don't feel any such compulsion.
So I've had an ongoing discussion with someone who uses logical fallacies, accuses scientists of making assumptions, lacking evidence, being liars, hiding or refusing to accept mistakes or obsolete understanding, etc whilst pushing creationism as reliable, supported by evidence, etc. He makes ludicrous claims and makes no attempt to justify them, instead trying to discredit science with ignorance and quote mining.
TLDR I've been discussing something with a creationist.
So without going into the details where I use reason and logic versus assertions and a lack of reason and logic, he keeps telling me how stupid I am, that I'm an example of the dunning-kruger effect (probably something a previous victim said to him and he thinks that accusing someone of that is a substitute for an argument), and that he has the upper hand because I'm incapable of thought, and just giving a general impression of superiority whilst having virtually no content.
I'm curious if there's a name for this type of "reasoning"/behaviour. Not so I can use it as an insult, if I needed to rely on insults I'd rather give up, just to further my understanding. The more I read about logical fallacies the more I understand about good and bad argument
Answers
5If someone says they are right because they are smarter or more emotionally intelligent this can be a form of gas lighting. If your opponent convinces you that they are smarter than you then they can have anything they want from you. It is similar to poisoning the well too. "You are less intelligent than me, therefore everything you say and believe is less intelligent."
Hi Bryan,
Claiming one is more intelligent is the same as claiming that the other person is less intelligent, which is like saying that since they are less intelligent, their claim must be false. This is a clear ad hominem . Remind the person of this, and ask them to stick to the argument/claim.
Some non-fallacy related argumentation advice: You also might want to mention that some of the most intelligent people in the world are/were not creationists nor Christians (e.g. Einstein, Hawking, etc.) or perhaps mention Francis Collins, the super intelligent former head of the human genome project (who IS a Christian, and a major supporter of evolution from a single ancestor). If the creationist starts rattling off "intelligent" creationists, then ask if you can simply agree that since there are intelligent people who hold both beliefs, if you can then leave intelligence out of the conversation (note: this is a shortcut only... intelligence is actually very important and relevant, but you will never convince the creationist that there is far more intelligence on the side of evolution).
Claiming one is more intelligent is the same as claiming that the other person is less intelligent, which is like saying that since they are less intelligent, their claim must be false. This is a clear ad hominem . Remind the person of this, and ask them to stick to the argument/claim.
Some non-fallacy related argumentation advice: You also might want to mention that some of the most intelligent people in the world are/were not creationists nor Christians (e.g. Einstein, Hawking, etc.) or perhaps mention Francis Collins, the super intelligent former head of the human genome project (who IS a Christian, and a major supporter of evolution from a single ancestor). If the creationist starts rattling off "intelligent" creationists, then ask if you can simply agree that since there are intelligent people who hold both beliefs, if you can then leave intelligence out of the conversation (note: this is a shortcut only... intelligence is actually very important and relevant, but you will never convince the creationist that there is far more intelligence on the side of evolution).
I think it also qualifies as argument from authority if they claim someone is more correct based on their position or some arbitrary trait that doesn't actually demonstrate the validity of their argument about creationism. Generally a red herring argument since they're derailing it into a matter of intelligence instead of actually meeting the burden of proof for their assertions. Evidence is vastly in favour of evolution, given we have real time developments such as elephants losing their tusks to cope with heavy poaching, lizards in a region that suddenly lost larger competing species developing larger heads to make better use of the increased availability of larger insects that used to be eaten by said larger lizards, a species of snake getting darker in polluted areas to better cope with those conditions, vestigial organs in a number of species, including hip bones in whales, etc. The gradual change of species in adaptation to their environment and the genetic relation between species that diverged from a common ancestor is clearly demonstrated fact.
Also I feel your pain. I've been there and they never seem to listen.
Also I feel your pain. I've been there and they never seem to listen.
The creationist is engaging in a litany of logically fallacious assertions and cognitive biases, among them: False premise, Foundational bias, ad hominem slurs, hasty generalizations, chronic catachresis, and psychological projection in defiance of contemporary empirical evidence and scientific studies. In essence, he clearly has no idea of what he's talking about. It is all subjective and ignorant opinion without evidence or support.
Steven Pinker explains this religious reactive bias thusly:
"Challenge a person’s beliefs, and you challenge his dignity, standing, and power. And when those beliefs are based on nothing but faith, they are chronically fragile. No one gets upset about the belief that rocks fall down as opposed to up, because all sane people can see it with their own eyes.? Not so for the belief that babies are born with original sin or that God exists in three persons or that Ali is the second-most divinely inspired man after Muhammad. When people organize their lives around these beliefs, and then learn of other people who seem to be doing just fine without them–or worse, who credibly rebut them–they are in danger of looking like fools. Since one cannot defend a belief based on faith by persuading skeptics it is true, the faithful are apt to react to unbelief with rage, and may try to eliminate that affront to everything that makes their lives meaningful."
Very often this defensive "rage" ( see Dan Kahan's Yale Cognition Studies or Sherman and Cohens Identity Protective Reasoning) results in a defensive posture of lies, falsehoods, misinterpretations, selective arrangement, cognitive dissonance and "alternative facts" tailored to protects the religionist's bias and identity but without merit. For instance, claiming religionists and theists are more "intelligent" than secularists and atheists is simply not supported by empirical evidence. (See: Pew Forum on Religious Religion and Public Life released a survey on religious knowledge.
When religionists slander secularists as victims of Dunning-Kruger it is but a misinformed catachresis of the term.
If atheists and secularists are proven to be more informed than your average Religionists then statistically they are less likely to be guilty of "Not knowing what they don't know". Thus, Dunning- Kruger effect is much greater with religionists than secularists, making it more likely they will project their own bias on their opponent. Psychological projection is when humans defend themselves against their own unconscious impulses or qualities by denying their existence in themselves while attributing them to others. (see Projektion: Sigmund Freud, Case Histories II (PFL 9) p. 132
Moreover psychologically projecting Dunning-Kruger on a non-believer is much more likely from the theist because of their defensive posture. Their claims come from a doxastically closed mindset, rather than from an individual who has no fixed beliefs based on supernatural pleadings.
Recent scientific theory suggests that theism and religion are-a residual by-product of an evolutionary useful instinctive process (see Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics)
Called the Savanna-IQ Interaction Hypothesis, Kanazawa's theory attempts to explain the differences in the behavior and attitudes of intelligent and less intelligent people, The hypothesis is based on two assumptions:
"First, that we are psychologically adapted to solve recurrent problems faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors in the African savanna,"
"Second, that 'general intelligence' (what is measured by IQ tests) evolved to help us deal with nonrecurrent problems for which we had no evolved psychological adaptations."
The assumptions imply that "intelligent people should be better than unintelligent people at dealing with 'evolutionary novelty' — situations and entities that did not exist in the ancestral environment suggesting that evolutionary intelligence is something that opposes primitive instincts.
Thus, according to Edward Dutton, a research fellow at the Ulster Institute for Social Research in the United Kingdom.
"Religion is nothing more than a primitive instinct, whereas true Intelligence means rationally solving problems as a means to overcome religious instinct. Overcoming religious instinct means being intellectually curious and open to non-instinctive possibilities,”
In summary, the claim that religious people are likely to be more intelligent and less susceptible to Dunning-Kruger is a false premise
without evidence. And, as the great Hitch opined: Anything that can be introduced without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.
Only in this case, there are mountains and mountains of evidence as to shrink the creationist's claim to nonsensical gibberish.
Steven Pinker explains this religious reactive bias thusly:
"Challenge a person’s beliefs, and you challenge his dignity, standing, and power. And when those beliefs are based on nothing but faith, they are chronically fragile. No one gets upset about the belief that rocks fall down as opposed to up, because all sane people can see it with their own eyes.? Not so for the belief that babies are born with original sin or that God exists in three persons or that Ali is the second-most divinely inspired man after Muhammad. When people organize their lives around these beliefs, and then learn of other people who seem to be doing just fine without them–or worse, who credibly rebut them–they are in danger of looking like fools. Since one cannot defend a belief based on faith by persuading skeptics it is true, the faithful are apt to react to unbelief with rage, and may try to eliminate that affront to everything that makes their lives meaningful."
Very often this defensive "rage" ( see Dan Kahan's Yale Cognition Studies or Sherman and Cohens Identity Protective Reasoning) results in a defensive posture of lies, falsehoods, misinterpretations, selective arrangement, cognitive dissonance and "alternative facts" tailored to protects the religionist's bias and identity but without merit. For instance, claiming religionists and theists are more "intelligent" than secularists and atheists is simply not supported by empirical evidence. (See: Pew Forum on Religious Religion and Public Life released a survey on religious knowledge.
When religionists slander secularists as victims of Dunning-Kruger it is but a misinformed catachresis of the term.
If atheists and secularists are proven to be more informed than your average Religionists then statistically they are less likely to be guilty of "Not knowing what they don't know". Thus, Dunning- Kruger effect is much greater with religionists than secularists, making it more likely they will project their own bias on their opponent. Psychological projection is when humans defend themselves against their own unconscious impulses or qualities by denying their existence in themselves while attributing them to others. (see Projektion: Sigmund Freud, Case Histories II (PFL 9) p. 132
Moreover psychologically projecting Dunning-Kruger on a non-believer is much more likely from the theist because of their defensive posture. Their claims come from a doxastically closed mindset, rather than from an individual who has no fixed beliefs based on supernatural pleadings.
Recent scientific theory suggests that theism and religion are-a residual by-product of an evolutionary useful instinctive process (see Satoshi Kanazawa, an evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics)
Called the Savanna-IQ Interaction Hypothesis, Kanazawa's theory attempts to explain the differences in the behavior and attitudes of intelligent and less intelligent people, The hypothesis is based on two assumptions:
"First, that we are psychologically adapted to solve recurrent problems faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors in the African savanna,"
"Second, that 'general intelligence' (what is measured by IQ tests) evolved to help us deal with nonrecurrent problems for which we had no evolved psychological adaptations."
The assumptions imply that "intelligent people should be better than unintelligent people at dealing with 'evolutionary novelty' — situations and entities that did not exist in the ancestral environment suggesting that evolutionary intelligence is something that opposes primitive instincts.
Thus, according to Edward Dutton, a research fellow at the Ulster Institute for Social Research in the United Kingdom.
"Religion is nothing more than a primitive instinct, whereas true Intelligence means rationally solving problems as a means to overcome religious instinct. Overcoming religious instinct means being intellectually curious and open to non-instinctive possibilities,”
In summary, the claim that religious people are likely to be more intelligent and less susceptible to Dunning-Kruger is a false premise
without evidence. And, as the great Hitch opined: Anything that can be introduced without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.
Only in this case, there are mountains and mountains of evidence as to shrink the creationist's claim to nonsensical gibberish.
The logical fallacy is ad hominem, but I have a different position on this. I believe its only an ad hominem if the insult is not additional to any argument. If they have refuted your argument and insulted you on top, then its not necessarily ad hominem because they have refuted you and the insult was not the replacement to the rebuttal. I can understand the urge to insult people sometimes, as it can be frustrating when people misconstrue despite a perfect explanation or resort to constant fallacy. You claimed that this person put forward no argument at all, I find that a bit hard to believe. Gods existence is unfalsifiable, many atheists claim that god absolutely doesn’t exist, but they’re burdening themselves to prove something they couldn’t possibly. Its illogical to claim that which cannot be falsified is false. Its a contradiction. On the flip side, creationism is a belief in gods existence, not an absolute claim. Athiests and creationists can both be illogical depending on whether they confuse their beliefs with absolute certainty. Understanding the limitations of a belief vs fact is how you avoid fallacy.
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