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Stupidity is a lack of intelligence, understanding, reason, wit, or sense.

Etymology of the word

Stupidity is a quality or state of being stupid, or an act or idea that exhibits properties of being stupid. The root word stupid, which can serve as an adjective or noun, comes from the Latin verb stupere, for being numb or astonished, and is related to stupor.

According to the online Merriam-Webster dictionary, the words "stupid" and "stupidity" entered the English language in 1541. Since then, stupidity has taken place along with "fool," "idiot," "dumb," "moron," and related concepts as a pejorative appellation for human misdeeds, whether purposeful or accidental, due to absence of mental capacity.

The modern English word "stupid" has a broad range of application, from being slow of mind (indicating a lack of intelligence, care or reason), dullness of feeling or sensation (torpidity, senseless, insensitivity), or lacking interest or point (vexing, exasperating). It can either infer a congenital lack of capacity for reasoning, or a temporary state of daze or slow-mindedness.

In science and research

There are Ig Nobel Prizes for trivial research in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, peace, public health, engineering, biology, mathematics, veterinary medicine. Awarded topics have included cows with names give more milk than cows that are nameless, or creating diamond film from tequila, or determining why pregnant women do not tip over. More socially harmful stupidity is academic stupidity, defined as "Academic Research Illusion", "deluding by creating illusory ideas", "considered scientific (magical) by laymen (naive observers)", "something what is false", "erroneous mental representation" It is when the quality of research is measured by the number of papers published, instead of the quality of the content produced, its correctness, importance, novelty, and originality. Such widely supported by funding agencies paper-count policy schemes are resulted in foolish things: Encouraging superficial research of hastily written, shallow (and often incorrect) papers lacking quality, value or sense; Encouraging extra large groups of academics; Encouraging repetition of the same ideas in many conferences and journals; Encouraging small, insignificant, and trivial studies; Rewarding publication of half-baked ideas.

There are also the The Darwin Awards, a tongue-in-cheek honour named after evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin. The Awards honour people who ensure the long-term survival of the human race by removing themselves from the gene pool in a sublimely idiotic fashion.

The economic historian Carlo Maria Cipolla is famous for his essays about human stupidity. The essay, The Fundamental Laws of Human Stupidity, explores the controversial subject of stupidity. Stupid people are seen as a group, more powerful by far than major organizations such as the Mafia and the industrial complex, which without regulations, leaders or manifesto nonetheless manages to operate to great effect and with incredible coordination. These are Cipolla's five fundamental laws of stupidity:

1. Always and inevitably each of us underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
2. The probability that a given person is stupid is independent of any other characteristic possessed by that person.
3. A person is stupid if they cause damage to another person or group of people without experiencing personal gain, or even worse causing damage to themselves in the process.
4. Non-stupid people always underestimate the harmful potential of stupid people; they constantly forget that at any time anywhere, and in any circumstance, dealing with or associating themselves with stupid individuals invariably constitutes a costly error.
5. A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person there is.

In comedy

The fool or buffoon has been a central character in much comedy. Alford and Alford found that humor based on stupidity was prevalent in "more complex" societies as compared to some other forms of humor. Some analysis of Shakespeare's comedy has found that his characters tend to hold mutually contradictory positions; because this implies a lack of careful analysis it indicates stupidity on their part. Today there is a wide array of television shows that showcase stupidity such as The Simpsons.

Literature review

The first book in English on stupidity was A Short Introduction to the History of Stupidity by Walter B. Pitkin (1932):

Stupidity can easily be proved the supreme Social Evil. Three factors combine to establish it as such. First and foremost, the number of stupid people is legion. Secondly, most of the power in business, finance, diplomacy and politics is in the hands of more or less stupid individuals. Finally, high abilities are often linked with serious stupidity.

According to In Search of Stupidity: Over Twenty Years of High Tech Marketing Disasters, (2003) by Merrill R. Chapman:

The claim that high-tech companies are constantly running into 'new' and 'unique' situations that they cannot possibly be expected to anticipate and intelligently resolve is demonstrably false....The truth is that technology companies are constantly repeating the same mistakes with wearying consistency...and many of the stupid things these companies do are completely avoidable.

"While In Search of Excellence turned out to be a fraud, In Search of Stupidity is genuine, and no names have been changed to protect the guilty." according to one reviewer.

Stupidity awards

There are the World Stupidity Awards granted in several categories: statement, situation, trend, achievement; man, movie, and media outlet

See also

• Bounded rationality
• Borderline intellectual functioning
• Darwin Awards
• Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds
• Genius
• Hanlon's razor
• Idiot (person)
• Ignorance
• Illusory superiority
• Irrationality
• Pigasus Award
• World Stupidity Awards

References

1. "stupidity". Merriam-Webster. Retrieved 2009-01-18.
2. "stupid". Merriam-Webster. Retrieved 2009-01-18.
3. "stupor". Merriam-Webster. Retrieved 2009-01-18.
4. http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/2009-05/msg00034.html
5. http://cosy.sbq.ac.at/~helmut/Stuff/parnas07.pdf
6. Finnegan Alford; Richard Alford. A Holo-Cultural Study of Humor. Ethos 9(2), pg 149-164.
7. N Frye. A Natural Perspective: The Development of Shakespearean Comedy and Romance. Columbia University Press, 1995.
8. R Hobbs. The Simpsons Meet Mark Twain: Analyzing Popular Media Texts in the Classroom. The English Journal, 1998.
9. Pitkin, Walter B. A Short Introduction to the History of Stupidity (1932).
10. http://www.insearchofstupidity.com/

Further reading

• Avital Ronell (2002). Stupidity. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 9780252071270. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |isbn10= ignored (help)
• Alice von Hildebrand (2008-01-29). "When is Stupidity a Sin?". {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
• Edmund Bergler (1998). The talent for stupidity: the psychology of the bungler, the incompetent, and the ineffectual. International Universities. ISBN 9780823663453. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |isbn10= ignored (help)
• L. Loewenfeld (1909). "Über die Dummbeit: Eine Umschau in Gebiete menschlicher Unzulänglichkeit" (in German). {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
• Paul Tabori (1962). The natural science of stupidity. Prentice-Hall International.
• Steven J. Bartlett (2005). "Moral Intelligence and the Pathology of Human Stupidity". The pathology of man: a study of human evil. C.C. Thomas. ISBN 9780398075576. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |isbn10= ignored (help)
• Giancarlo Livraghi (2009). The Power of Stupidity. Pescara: Monti&Ambrosini. ISBN 9788889479155.
• Robert J. Sternberg, ed. (2003). Why Smart People Can Be So Stupid. Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300101706. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |isbn10= ignored (help)
• Stephen Greenspan (2008). "Foolish action in adults with intellectual disabilities: the forgotten problem of risk-unawareness". In Laraine Masters Glidden (ed.). International Review of Research in Mental Retardation. Vol. 36. Academic Press. ISBN 9780123744760. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |isbn10= ignored (help)

External links

• "Unskilled and unaware of it: How Difficulties in Recognizing One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments" The authors received the 2000 Ig Nobel Prize in psychology.

• Sociology
• Intelligence