Scott Berkun

#40 – Why smart people defend bad ideas

By Scott Berkun, April 2005

We all know someone who’s intelligent, but who occasionally defends obviously bad ideas. Why does this happen? How can smart people take up positions that defy any reasonable logic? Having spent many years working with smart people I’ve cataloged many of the ways this happens, and I have advice on what to do about it. I feel qualified to write this essay as I’m a recovering smart person myself and I’ve defended several very bad ideas. So if nothing else this essay serves as a kind of personal therapy session. However, I fully suspect you’ll get more than just entertainment value (“Look, Scott is more stupid than we thought!”) out of what I have to say on this topic.

Success at defending bad ideas

I’m not proud to admit that I have a degree in Logic and Computation from Carnegie Mellon University. Majoring in logic is not the kind of thing that makes people want to talk to you at parties, or read your essays. But one thing I did learn after years of studying advanced logic theory is that proficiency in argument can easily be used to overpower others, even when you are dead wrong. If you learn a few tricks of logic and debate, you can refute the obvious, and defend the ridiculous. If the people you’re arguing with aren’t as comfortable in the tactics of argument, or aren’t as arrogant as you are, they may even give in and agree with you.

The problem with smart people is that they like to be right and sometimes will defend ideas to the death rather than admit they’re wrong. This is bad. Worse, if they got away with it when they were young (say, because they were smarter than their parents, their friends, and their parent’s friends) they’ve probably built an ego around being right, and will therefore defend their perfect record of invented righteousness to the death. Smart people often fall into the trap of preferring to be right even if it’s based in delusion, or results in them, or their loved ones, becoming miserable. (Somewhere in your town there is a row of graves at the cemetery, called smartypants lane, filled with people who were buried at poorly attended funerals, whose headstones say “Well, at least I was right.”)

Until they come face to face with someone who is tenacious enough to dissect their logic, and resilient enough to endure the thinly veiled intellectual abuse they dish out during debate (e.g. “You don’t really think that do you?”or “Well if you knew the <insert obscure reference here> rule/law/corollary you wouldn’t say such things”), they’re never forced to question their ability to defend bad ideas. Opportunities for this are rare: a new boss, a new co-worker, a new spouse. But if their obsessiveness about being right is strong enough, they’ll reject those people out of hand before they question their own biases and self-manipulations. It can be easier for smart people who have a habit of defending bad ideas to change jobs, spouses, or cities rather than honestly examine what is at the core of their psyche (and often, their misery).

Short of obtaining a degree in logic, or studying the nuances of debate, remember this one simple rule for defusing those who are skilled at defending bad ideas: Simply because they cannot be proven wrong, does not make them right. Most of the tricks of logic and debate refute questions and attacks, but fail to establish any true justification for a given idea.

For example, just because you can’t prove that I’m not the king of France reincarnated doesn’t make it so. So when someone tells you “My plan A is the best because no one has explained how it will fail” know that there is a logical gap in this argument. Simply because no one has described how it will fail, doesn’t necessarily make it the best plan. It’s possible than plans B, C, D and E all have the same quality, or that the reason no one has described how A will fail is that no one has had more than 30 seconds to scrutinize the plan. As we’ll discuss later, diffusing bad thinking requires someone (probably you) to construct a healthier framework around the bad thinking that shows it for what it is.

Death by homogeny

The second stop on our tour of commonly defended bad ideas is the seemingly friendly notion of communal thinking. Just because everyone in the room is smart doesn’t mean that collectively they will arrive at smart ideas. The power of peer pressure is that it works on our psychology, not our intellect. As social animals we are heavily influenced by how the people around us behave, and the quality of our own internal decision making varies widely depending on the environment we currently are in. (e.g. Try to write a haiku poem while standing in an elevator with 15 opera singers screaming 15 different operas, in 15 different languages, in falsetto, directly at you vs. sitting on a bench in a quiet stretch of open woods).

That said, the more homogeneous a group of people are in their thinking, the narrower the range of ideas that the group will openly consider. The more open minded, creative, and courageous a group is, the wider the pool of ideas they’ll be capable of exploring.

Some teams of people look to focus groups, consultancies, and research methods to bring in outside ideas, but this rarely improves the quality of thinking in the group itself. Those outside ideas, however bold or original, are at the mercy of the diversity of thought within the group itself. If the group, as a collective, is only capable of approving B level work, it doesn’t matter how many A level ideas you bring to it. Focus groups or other outside sources of information can not give a team, or its leaders, a soul. A bland homogeneous team of people has no real opinions, because it consists of people with same backgrounds, outlooks, and experiences who will only feel comfortable discussing the safe ideas that fit into those constraints.

If you want your smart people to be as smart as possible, seek a diversity of ideas. Find people with different experiences, opinions, backgrounds, weights, heights, races, facial hair styles, colors, past-times, favorite items of clothing, philosophies, and beliefs. Unify them around the results you want, not the means or approaches they are expected to use. It’s the only way to guarantee that the best ideas from your smartest people will be received openly by the people around them. On your own, avoid homogenous books, films, music, food, sex, media and people. Actually experience life by going to places you don’t usually go, spending time with people you don’t usually spend time with. Be in the moment and be open to it. Until recently in human history, life was much less predictable and we were forced to encounter things not always of our own choosing. We are capable of more interesting and creative lives than our modern cultures often provide for us. If you go out of your way to find diverse experiences it will become impossible for you to miss ideas simply because your homogenous outlook filtered them out.

Thinking at the wrong level

At any moment on any project there are an infinite number of levels of problem solving. Part of being a truly smart person is to know which level is the right one at a given time. For example, if you are skidding out of control at 95mph in your broken down Winnebago on an ice covered interstate, when a semi-truck filled with both poorly packaged fireworks and loosely bundled spark plugs slams on its brakes, it’s not the right time to discuss with your passengers where y’all would like to stop for dinner. But as ridiculous as this scenario sounds, it happens all the time. People worry about the wrong thing at the wrong time and apply their intelligence in ways that doesn’t serve the greater good of whatever they’re trying to achieve. Some call this difference in skill wisdom, in that the wise know what to be thinking about, where as the merely intelligent only know how to think. (The de-emphasis of wisdom is an east vs. west dichotomy: eastern philosophy heavily emphasizes deeper wisdom, where as the post enlightenment west, and perhaps particularly America, heavily emphasizes the intellectual flourishes of intelligence).

In the software industry, the common example of thinking at the wrong level is a team of rock star programmers who can make anything, but don’t really know what to make: so they tend to build whatever things come to mind, never stopping to find someone who might not be adept at writing code, but can see where the value of their programming skills would be best applied. Other examples include people that always worry about money despite how much they have, people who struggle with relationships but invest their energy only in improving their appearance (instead of in therapy or other emotional exploration), or anyone that wants to solve problem X but only ever seems to do things that solve problem Y.

The primary point is that no amount of intelligence can help an individual who is diligently working at the wrong level of the problem. Someone with wisdom has to tap them on the shoulder and say, “Um, hey. The hole you’re digging is very nice, and it is the right size. But you’re in the wrong yard.”

Killed in the long term by short term thinking

From what we know of evolution it’s clear that we are alive because of our inherited ability to think quickly and respond to change. The survival of living creatures, for most of the history of our planet, has been a short term game. Only if you can out-run your predators, and catch your prey, do you have the luxury of worrying about tomorrow.

It follows then that we tend to be better at worrying about and solving short term issues than long term issues. Even when we recognize an important long term issue that we need to plan for, say protecting natural resources or saving for retirement, we’re all too easily distracted away from those deep thoughts by immediate things like dinner or sex (important things no doubt, but the driving needs in these pursuits, at least for this half of the species, are short term in nature). Once distracted, we rarely return to the long term issues we were drawn away from.

A common justification for abuse of short term thinking is the fake perspective defense. The wise, but less confident guy says “hey are you sure we should be doing this?” And the smart, confident, but less wise guy says “of course. We did this last time, and the time before that, so why shouldn’t we do this again?”. This is the fake perspective defense because there’s no reason to believe that 2 points of data (e.g. last time plus the time before that) is sufficient to make claims about the future. People say similar things all the time in defense of the free market economy, democracy, and mating strategies. “Well, it’s gotten us this far, and it’s the best system we have”. Well, maybe. But if you were in that broken down Winnebago up to your ankles in gasoline from a leaking tank, smoking a cigarette in each hand, you could say the same thing.

Put simply, the fact that you’re not dead yet doesn’t mean that the things you’ve done up until now shouldn’t have, by all that is fair in the universe, already killed you. You might just need a few more data points for the law of averages to catch up, and put a permanent end to your short term thinking.

How many data points you need to feel comfortable continuing a behavior is entirely a matter of personal philosophy. The wise and skeptical know that even an infinite number of data points in the past may only have limited bearing on the future. The tricky thing about the future is that it’s different than the past. Our data from the past, no matter how big a pile of data it is, may very well be entirely irrelevant. Some find this lack of predictive ability of the future quite frustrating, while others see it as the primary reason to stick around for a few more years.

Anyway, my point is not that Winnebagos or free market economies are bad. Instead I’m saying that short term bits of data are neither reliable nor a wise way to go about making important long term decisions. Intelligent people do this all the time, and since it’s so commonly accepted as a rule of thumb (last time + the time before that), it’s often accepted in place of actual thinking. Always remember that humans, given our evolution, are very bad at seeing the cumulative effects of behavior, and underestimate how things like compound interest or that one cigarette a day, can in the long term, have surprisingly large impacts despite clearly low short term effects.

How to prevent smart people from defending bad ideas

I spent my freshman year at a small college in NJ called Drew University. I had a fun time, ingested many tasty alcoholic beverages, and went to lots of great parties (the result of which of course was that I basically failed out and had to move back to Queens with my parents. You see, the truth is that this essay is really a public service announcement paid for by my parents – I was a smart person that did some stupid things). But the reason I mention all this is because I learned a great bit of philosophy from many hours of playing pool in the college student center. The lesson is this: Speed kills. I was never very good at pool, but this one guy there was, and whenever we’d play, he’d watch me miss easy shots because I tried to force them in with authority. I chose speed and power over control, and I usually lost. So like pool, when it comes to defusing smart people who are defending bad ideas, you have to find ways to slow things down.

The reason for this is simple. Smart people, or at least those whose brains have good first gears, use their speed in thought to overpower others. They’ll jump between assumptions quickly, throwing out jargon, bits of logic, or rules of thumb at a rate of fire fast enough to cause most people to become rattled, and give in. When that doesn’t work, the arrogant or the pompous will throw in some belittlement and use whatever snide or manipulative tactics they have at their disposal to further discourage you from dissecting their ideas.

So your best defense starts by breaking an argument down into pieces. When they say “it’s obvious we need to execute plan A now.” You say, “hold on. You’re way ahead of me. For me to follow I need to break this down into pieces.” And without waiting for permission, you should go ahead and do so.

First, nothing is obvious. If it were obvious there would be no need to say so. So your first piece is to establish what isn’t so obvious. What are the assumptions the other guy is glossing over that are worth spending time on? There may be 3 or 4 different valid assumptions that need to be discussed one at a time before any kind of decision can be considered. Take each one in turn, and lay out the basic questions: what problem are we trying to solve? What alternatives to solving it are there? What are the tradeoffs in each alternative? By breaking it down and asking questions you expose more thinking to light, make it possible for others to ask questions, and make it more difficult for anyone to defend a bad idea.

No one can ever take away your right to think things over, especially if the decision at hand is important. If your mind works best in 3rd or 4th gear, find ways to give yourself the time needed to get there. If when you say ” need the afternoon to think this over”, they say
“tough. We’re deciding now”. Ask if the decision is an important one. If they say yes, then you should be completely justified in asking for more time to think it over and ask questions.

Find a sane person people listen to

Some situations require outside help. Instead of taking a person on directly, get a third party that you both respect, and continue the discussion in their presence. This can be a superior, or simply someone smart enough that the other person might possibly concede points to them.

It follows that if your team manager is wise and reasonable, smart people who might ordinarily defend bad ideas will have a hard time doing so. But sadly if your team manager is neither wise nor reasonable, smart, arrogant people may convince others to follow their misguided ways more often than not.

And yet more reasons

I’m sure you have stories of your own follies dealing with smart people defending bad ideas, or where you, yourself, as a smart person, have spent time arguing for things you regretted later. Given the wondrous multitude of ways the universe has granted humans to be smart and dumb at the same time, there are many more reasons why smart people behave in stupid ways. For fun, and as fodder, here’s a few more.

If you have some thoughts on this essay, or some more reasons to add, leave a comment:

• Smart people can follow stupid leaders (seeking praise or promotion)
• Smart people may follow their anger into stupid places
• They may be trained or educated into stupidity
• Smart people can inherit bad ideas from their parents under the guise of tradition
• They may simply want something to be true, that can never be

References

• Check out my related essay, how to detect bullshit.
• Difficult conversations, a book about confronting people in tough situations.
• The argument clinic, Monty Python (If you’ve never seen it, watch it before reading this script. It’s in the 3rd season, disc 9 of the boxed set). Also see the splunge scene in episode 6.
• Games people play, Eric Byrne. A book on transactional analyis: a model for why people behave as they do in certain situations.
• The informed argument, Robert Miller. Textbook style coverage of both proper and unfair argument tactics.
• With good reason, Morris Engel. a short summary of common logic manipulations, explained with a sense of humor (over a dozen cartoons).
• Why smart people can be so stupid, Salon.com

50 Responses

• 
• Aaron - October 31, 2008 at 12:20 am #

• If a truck were carrying spark plugs and fireworks (and how likely is that really), the spark plugs would not ignite the fireworks. You see, spark plugs work by forming a circuit with a gap. The current jumps over the gap forming a spark. The current comes from a source of electricity, commonly the alternator in a typical car or truck. The plug must also be installed correctly into a working engine in order to complete the circuit.

  So while it’s true I would not be asking my friends about dinner, I also would not be particularly concerned about the spark plugs.

  
  

• 
• roflchopter - November 25, 2008 at 4:10 pm #

• wat and troll @ fireworks an spark plugs

  
  

• 
• wei - December 15, 2008 at 10:49 am #

• it sounds like the smart people you are referring to are not actually smart, just really arrogant (which gives perception of intelligence)

  
  

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• it2051229 - December 18, 2008 at 7:47 am #

• Scott is trying to be smart by throwing out logic and jargons and stuff on how smart people acts as reflected on this blog. hehehe…

  
  

• 
• Steve Vogt - December 24, 2008 at 8:44 pm #

• I like to think I have this problem, because I want to be smart.

  
  

• 
• Recruiting Animal - December 27, 2008 at 9:22 am #

• Fun article. Thanks. But your stupid east-west dichotomy was put in to prove your point about smart people saying a lot of things they can’t prove, right?

  
  

• 
• Dr.Burak YILMAZER - December 29, 2008 at 8:24 am #

• rarely i find some articles that express my ideas exactly in the same manner that i do,even with the same logic flow.Thinking that i can read quite fast,i feel jealous that someone else have already said just when my! words were at the tip of my tongue.If i look positively,it is like as you point your team mate for his brilliant action after you score.You have done it.Thank you

  
  

• 
• Top Internet Blog - March 4, 2009 at 2:47 pm #

• bad ideas are really get defeated by smarts like me :-) good post dude, i like it

  
  

• 
• George - April 8, 2009 at 12:40 am #

• What’s “freshman”?
  under heading -
  How to prevent Smart People from Defending Bad Ideas

  
  

• 
• Dude this is awsome - May 5, 2009 at 9:28 pm #

• I came across this page, desperately looking to see if anyone felt the same way I do about people who are ALWAYS right!!! Im a very patient person, very quiet, and If I see conflict, Ill look at both sides, weigh the pro’s and cons and make my decision based on intuition…
  But, My younger brother, Very competitive, argumentative, ego as big as a skyscraper, and short tempered. Put it this way. In his own mind, is never wrong. He will deny truth and all logic, even if the opposing side provides overwhelming evidence proving his theory wrong at every angel possible. No matter how wrong he is he will find a way to justify it, gong as far as misquoting a statement you made earlier in the argument, just to say “you contradicted yourself!” Ive seen him do it to me and others, its insane!!
  Once in an argument I remember telling him,
  “ you’re always right, even when you’re dead wrong.”
  His reply (wait for it……) “Im wrong… SOMETIMES.”
  Me: “Oh realy? When, I’d love to know, name ONE time?!”
  Him (sarcastically) “well, let me just get out my little black book!”
  With this guy, you really have to leave NO stone unturned and once you have him cornered, he has to literally be the one to get the last word, even if the statement holds no merit to his argument.

  Wow! This comment turned out to be a lot longer than I intended it to be, I just had to vent but I really do appreciate the advice man.

  Cheers!

  
  

• 
• Lisa - May 7, 2009 at 2:53 pm #

• i do very often defend bad ideas because i know that I am smarter than some of those around me and I did learn this at a very early age but here is my predicament since you seem to have so much insight. Many times, i do not want to defend any bad ideas with these people that i know can be out witted quickly but i do not even want to interact with them. For example, when i was in college and someone would ask a question, i would just cringe and roll my eyes because it felt like such a waste of time. I thought that was because i was in college and did not really want to be there, i wanted to be in the real world. However, now that i work these people still really get on my nerves. It is like their brains are always stuck in either 4th gear or they are alway “digging up the wrong yard”. I am having a very hard time interacting with these type of people. What does that mean? That i am beyond arrogant? or i just have no patience? Am i the only one that ever feels so irritated by slow thinking people? Like i always want to say “that has nothing to do with anything” and then just move on and do things by myself.

  
  

• 
• Sally - Drop out Diaries - May 22, 2009 at 3:32 am #

• Fantastic read, thanks! As a reasonably smart person and an INTJ to boot, I have often been in this situation. It’s something I don’t like about myself and articles like this may help me to change my behaviour (not completely but sufficiently to make me a little more acceptable in team meetings!).

  
  

• 
• pal - June 2, 2009 at 5:48 am #

• When two smart people A and B like you referring here are defending some ideas, there are two ways to see the idea that’s in ‘A’s way’ and ‘B’s way’. But they might be missing something – the ‘correct way’. and the essay like your plays an important role to neutralize their ego!

  impressive article.

  
  

• 
• happysmoker - June 26, 2009 at 11:08 am #

• Great post with a lot of excellent points. It’s true that intelligence is knowing how to think but wisdom is knowing what to think about – probably one of, if not THE, biggest differences between the east & west.

  On a side note, I personally don’t think anybody is ‘unintelligent’. Some people just use their big brains for such silly things. An arrogant person is not stupid – it requires a lot of mental agility to be arrogant. No, it’s just that they are directing their brainpower into a non-useful channel.

  
  

• 
• Zoltan self control - July 13, 2009 at 2:19 am #

• I think it’s all about control. Smart people think whatever they said it’s about the truth. They don’t want to accept the fact that there are other opinions about any particular issue.

  Smart people have to have the final words in any discussion. But, I agree that it’s not only about being “smart” it’s about being arrogant as well.

  
  

• 
• Ron - July 14, 2009 at 1:48 pm #

• Smart people (im one) tend to rely more on proven data then opening up the box and seeing life from new ways.I went to a gambling boat because an insistent friend begged me.I set a 40.00 cap on my spending..i won 20.00 the first time i pulled a slot machine handle..so what i did next was wage 60.00 on one hand of 21 and lost it all.So in less then 10 minutes i was done gambling.I walked around for 2 hours while he lost 1000.00.i knew better and didnt care to go to the casino.But this is an example about how a smart person can be talked into going against their better logic.

  
  

• 
• Travis - August 10, 2009 at 4:45 pm #

• The point made that people should keep an open mind, experiencing new situations to gain perspective, is a good one. But people are limited in their capacity to dissect information. We make a multitude of assumptions every day in order to unclog our brains and that is not necessarilly a bad thing. I beleive wisdom is recognizing when the circumstances surrounding the formulation of those assumptions has changed. When this occurs, one must revaluate whether a reformulation of their opinion is necessary, to what degree, and whether circumstances will persist to the order that the new assumption may be made constant.

  
  

• 
• Nea - September 3, 2009 at 10:38 am #

• Wonderful article, Scott.

  
  

• 
• Fuck you - September 3, 2009 at 6:10 pm #

• I agree with this fucking nonsense. Physics have proved that there is no axiom that can not be dispruved by a guy called Godel. He is perfectry right. We are perfectly fucked in the graves of our world. We are just dummies who only comply with crash tests and nothing else. We are inherently doomed to failure as our explanations will never find a common ground. God bless you all!

  
  

• 
• Scott Berkun - September 4, 2009 at 8:05 am #

• FU: I’d hate to see a comment from you on a bad day.

  
  

• 
• Barry Atkinson - September 9, 2009 at 4:58 pm #

• Throughout 40 years of working in private industry and government have NEVER seen
  a “smart’ loud, arrogant individual, although they tend to dominate many groups. The bigger the mouth, the smaller the brain. They prove to have a middling IQ at best, and although IQ is not a guarantee of success, it is a usefull
  measurement. Was Einstein loud and boisterous?
  Soon we’ll have iphones and blackberrys to help
  us reason, programmed by the lowest possible
  bidder….

  
  

• 
• T - September 30, 2009 at 8:05 am #

• This just goes to show that it’s likely for the majority to win. No one wants to stand out and be different because of what other might think. I think some time we are to much of a social animal.
  Just step bak and take a look of the picture frm your points of view.

  
  

• 
• Frank - January 8, 2010 at 7:33 am #

• So what happens when the smart people defends good ideas?

  
  

• 
• Frank - January 9, 2010 at 5:11 pm #

• Maybe they are just not so smart.

  
  

• 
• Nate - January 9, 2010 at 8:17 pm #

• When smart people are wrong, they’re wrong. I can get behind that. But you’ve neglected the possibility here that smart people are sometimes, if not frequently correct in their thinking.

  Ya lost me though with that King of France/unprovability thing. You’ve invited those who can’t defend their ideas to adhere steadfastly to truthiness, and disregard “city slicker logic”.

  The rest of the essay seems like a coded argument that science majors need MBAs for bosses.

  And then the loony closer: These three points fall on a continuum on anti-intellectualism, baseless self-esteem, and anti-responsibility(ism) that have made America increasingly lame. Our bosses know this.

  
  

• 
• Nathan - January 10, 2010 at 12:19 pm #

• Great piece. This is something I’ve been working on lately. I often find myself getting frustrated with people for making the same logical mistakes over and over again–I try to point them out gently and sometimes end up turning my own helpful correction into something like you describe. I think it comes from my frustration with encountering the same logical fallacies on a daily basis. Thanks for writing.

  
  

• 
• Corbin Harris - January 21, 2010 at 12:32 am #

• I was so excited to read this, It gave me some new thoughts on directions I could consider going in my life to better myself. It was very well thought out and probably took a lot of time to break down and understand this whole idea. I’m reconsidering a lot right now and I thank you for writing this Essay.

  
  

• 
• Phar4oh - January 23, 2010 at 9:06 pm #

• I agree with most of your points. My wife says I always defend bad ideas, but I think you should also suggest that if the so called bad ideas are logically defended and cannot be dismantled due to poor counter logic or just wanting it to be wrong, it’s possible that the defended idea might not be a bad in the first place, and it’s time to concede defeat…
  On the other hand, I have been known to defend bad ideas as a personal challenge for fun; a game of wits (and irritation) I suppose.

  
  

• 
• Jake - February 2, 2010 at 5:06 pm #

• Great read!
  It all makes sense, and is so true! 100%

  I know I’ve done that a lot, especially when I was younger. Always wanting to be right, even if it didn’t make a lot of sense. Or in an effort to spend less time talking to the person.

  I noticed that I’ve been using some of the approaches you talk about, like breaking down their logic and disproving what they say, making it seem like I’m right even if both sides aren’t raising an ideal point.

  
  

• 
• Your Mother - February 4, 2010 at 5:27 pm #

• I thought it was a great article.
  Okay…clearly he didn’t go into too much depth with the spark plugs example but that’s not really relevant. We know what he meant by it, or should know anyways.
  Also, for those of you who aren’t feeling as though the “stupid” people/slow thinking people understand you, then perhaps you’re just not hanging around the right crowd!

  
  

• 
• Jacques - February 26, 2010 at 2:54 pm #

• It’s not a problem with smart people; it’s a problem with dumb people who fancy themselves.
  The greatest hindrance to discovery is not ignorance, it’s the illusion of knowledge.

  Dumb people who think they’re smart are the worst kind of people to have a discussion with.

  It’s the same old thing: perception versus reality.
  It is a proven fact that the majority of people think they are good drivers, good lovers and of above average intelligence.

  
  

• 
• Stephanie Booth - March 6, 2010 at 2:24 am #

• Nice article! I’d add the following (taken from personal experience of doing it way too often):

  A smart person may defend a bad idea because the idea has its roots in unresolved emotional stuff even though the logic that leads to it is perfect. In other words, the logical castle may be wonderful and solid, but it’s built on sand. It takes somebody who will not be seduced by the argumentative discourse and who will look down at the foundation to expose this kind of thinking.

  Typo: it’s Eric Berne, not Byrne (Games People Play)

  
  

• 
• Jury Nelson - March 10, 2010 at 12:53 am #

• Stumbled from MPLS.

  I actively defend PLENTY of bad ideas (albeit ones of no consequence, i.e., “Bones is a fantastic Television show.” “Jay Leno is vital to America’s continued success) that I don’t even believe in. For me, it’s more like a game.

  Other people play basketball even though they don’t believe at the core of their being that THIS ball belongs in THAT net and every moment that it is outside causes me physical pain. Well me, I bring up reasons why things you think are stupid are actually incredibly smart.

  This article was a really fun read, because I do work with a lot of people who act right and aren’t. The main reason I love it, though is that you’re not using words in ways I understand.

  The thing about “psychology v. intellect” blew my mind a little and I’m sure will be very important. But the way you use ‘homogenous’ makes me want to strangle you a little. What if, say, a group is uniformly open minded, creative, and courageous? Will they only have stupid ideas? Or do we need to have a dull bigot thrown in there to make everybody smart?

  
  

• 
• Reece Webster - March 18, 2010 at 6:03 am #

• Nice article. I often have debates with my close friends which require a little more intellect than most discussions. And I have found that often in my head I will side with their argument but instead of siding with them I will offer an argument from the other side of the coin. In this way I can see if my own opinion (that which my friend is arguing for) can be taken down by my ability to question. Obviously if I cannot out argue my friend his opinion becomes more true in my head.

  
  

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• [...] Why smart people defend bad ideas [...]

  
  

• Why Smart People Defend Bad Ideas « PurpleSlog - August 23, 2007 at 3:03 am

• [...] Smart People Defend Bad Ideas A buddy sent me this link entitled Why smart people defend bad ideas from scottberkun.com. It has some gems like: We all know someone who’s intelligent, but who [...]

  
  

• Insights Delimited By Time » Blog Archive » Another insight - November 8, 2007 at 1:51 am

• [...] archives I came across the name of Scott Berkun and a reference to his essay titled Why smart people defend bad ideas. The title and ofcourse the contents were so interesting that I experienced no deficit of attention [...]

  
  

• Learn. Live. Love. » Blog Archive » Smart Up - January 30, 2008 at 9:11 am

• [...] paragraph is from a web post “Why smart people defend bad ideas.” If you want your smart people to be as smart as possible, seek a diversity of ideas. Find [...]

  
  

• siotha.com » Blog Archive » How do Smart People Defend Bad Ideas? - April 29, 2008 at 2:32 am

• [...] occasional – must defend smartness – even if it’s a bad idea – Logic. However, after reading Scott Berkun’s blog #40 “Why Smart People Defend Bad Ideas” it makes brilliant [...]

  
  

• Fashion Incubator » Blog Archive » 8 ways to better communication - April 22, 2009 at 3:42 pm

• [...] it distresses me that successful, smart and articulate people are often the least likely to listen (smart people are better able to defend their opinions). It’s such a waste of talent and money. He had a few suggestions, he said I should ask [...]

  
  

• Thur, May 28th – CrossFit Ireland - Great People. Great Fitness. - May 27, 2009 at 4:05 pm

• [...] Why Smart People Defend Bad Ideas [...]

  
  

• How to keep your mouth shut – interesting article by Scott Berkun « Reflections of my thoughts… - October 12, 2009 at 7:54 pm

• [...] Why smart people defend bad ideas [...]

  
  

• The Problem With Being Smart | WhataManKnows.com - January 12, 2010 at 6:24 am

• [...] Berkun (an actual smart person) once did a piece on just this subject, entitled, Why Smart People Defend Bad Ideas — and it’s awesome.� When you have about 15 minutes, I recommend it [...]

  
  

• I know, right!? « Blog o' the week - February 9, 2010 at 6:33 am

• [...] I know, right!? Posted in Suggestions of the week by onlinemarius on February 9, 2010 Book o’ the week: Stephen Covey – The 7 habits of highly effective people (amazon)(ro) I really recommend that you get it in English. Movie o’ the week: Full Metal Jacket (imdb 8.4) Audio program o’ the week: Maxwell Maltz – The New Psycho Cybernetics (nightingale.com) Song o’ the week – Gnarls Barkley – Going On (youtube) Article o’ the week: Why smart people defend bad ideas (link) [...]

  
  

• So you wanna be a management star « Heavy Mental - February 15, 2010 at 12:46 am

• [...] How to detect bullshit and assertive Why smart people have bad ideas gives you some hint on how to step back in some tense conversations not to get misguided to [...]

  
  

• links for 2010-02-17 | edu tim - February 17, 2010 at 1:35 am

• [...] #40 � Why smart people defend bad ideas � Scott Berkun (tags: education) [...]

  
  

• Tagged on the Web 02/17/2010 - February 17, 2010 at 5:30 am

• [...] #40 � Why smart people defend bad ideas � Scott Berkun [...]

  
  

• Daily Digest for February 27th - February 27, 2010 at 10:05 am

• [...] Shared #40 � Why smart people defend bad ideas � Scott Berkun. [...]