This is like when people tell me about their friends who are engineers who are dedicated Trumpists. You can be skilled at something but in terms of emotional intelligence be a cinder block. Or you can be a street sweeper and still know right from wrong and truth from bullshit. /1 https://twitter.com/NatsAndCats/status/1388672549450551298

One of the things you learn when you examine "foxes" (broad knowledge) vs "hedgehogs" (deep but narrow learning) is that hedgehogs are often the wrongest people there are once outside their own field. /2

Recommending the book here by @PTetlock on this, but in general, people with super-deep but narrow knowledge can be a lot dumber about a lot of other things because all they know is that one thing they're good at. /3

So it's not a surprise to me when people say "my dad was a chemical engineer but believes everything Hannity says" because he might be the kind of guy who, once outside engineering, is a complete moron about everything else. /4

I have encountered people who practically savants this way. Ask them to explain Fermat's Theorem or something, no problem. Ask them about anything else, and it's like talking to a wall (and not just politics). Even worse "hedgehogs" overestimate their own abilities this way. /5

This is the educated person's Dunning-Kruger. "I am brilliant at computer science, so I am brilliant at everything and that's why I am able to grasp things in ways you think are stupid, because I am so smart, S-M-R-T smart!" It's a problem with narrow specialization - often. /6

That's one reason the most successful senior people in an organization are "foxes," and why promoting the best engineer to be the head of all engineering sometimes results in disaster. Narrow rises fast but stops; Broad and integrative rises more slowly but goes farther. /7

Anyway, it is not really a contradiction to say "your dad the neurosurgeon who watches Fox is stupid," because outside of neurosurgery, your dad might be dumber than hair about basic elements of logic and reasoning outside of his narrow craft. It's a common thing. /8x