[imported_luckyme]

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The closer the far fetched belief is to normal life/medical science the more worried I'd be. A really far-fetched belief is likely to be as a result of a completely different process.

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Excellent point. It’s important that it’s the effective use of the same tool that is being compared. In the military example I suggested that it was at the level of strategy rather than tactics that DS’s ‘creative solutions via analogies and sound logic’ type of thinking is better tested. Here, I’d make a distinction between surgical skill and diagnostic ability. It’s the diagnostic ability that would be in the same arena as the OJ case, much more than surgical skill.

Fixing my car, replacing my kidney or charging up a hill all tap into an area that is more rote and arrived at via study and practice, regardless of how skillfully (sometimes amazingly so) it is done. As you move up towards the level of Sun Tsu and you’re freewheeling, that’s where you want a DS type of intelligence working for you. A boxer’s performance isn’t indicated by what he thinks of the OJ case.

It’s a bit simplistic, but it hard to understand how an inquiring mind that strives for logical conclusions built on investigating empirical evidence can coexist with a mind that puts a lot of emphasis on subjectiveness ( or dogma ) in problem solving. If that’s the general case DS is making (?) it seems reasonable if kept to fields where those skills are needed. If there really can be a different process at work to explain a far-fetched belief that doesn’t seem linked to rationality then DS’s claim perhaps doesn’t apply. We haven't sorted this issue out yet.

luckyme,
If I thought I was wrong, I’d change my mind