Need to know
The Japanese Zen term shoshin translates as ‘beginner’s mind’ and refers to a paradox: the more you know about a subject, the more likely you are to close your mind to further learning. As the Zen monk Shunryu Suzuki put it in his book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind (1970): ‘In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.’
Many historical examples demonstrate how the expert mind (or feeling like an expert) can lead to closed-mindedness and the obstruction of scientific progress. In 1912, for instance, when the German geophysicist and explorer Alfred Wegener proposed – counter to the received wisdom of the day – that the Earth is made up of shifting continental plates, he was ridiculed by expert geologists around the world. His German compatriots referred to his ‘delirious ravings’ while experts in the United States accused him of peddling pseudoscience. It would take decades before the orthodoxy was overturned and the accuracy of his theory was acknowledged.
Similar stories abound. In my own field of neuroscience, for example, belief in the legendary Spanish neuroscientist Santiago Ramón y Cajal’s ‘harsh decree’ that adult humans are unable to grow new neurons persisted for decades in the face of mounting contradictory evidence.
Intellectual hubris doesn’t afflict only established scientific experts. Merely having a university degree in a subject can lead people to grossly overestimate their knowledge. In one pertinent study in 2015, researchers at Yale University asked graduates to estimate their knowledge of various topics relevant to their degrees, and then tested their actual ability to explain those topics. The participants frequently overestimated their level of understanding, apparently mistaking the ‘peak knowledge’ they had at the time they studied at university for their considerably more modest current knowledge.
Unfortunately, just as Suzuki wrote and as historical anecdotes demonstrate, there is research evidence that even feeling like an expert also breeds closed-mindedness. Another study involved giving people the impression that they were relatively expert on a topic (for example, by providing them with inflated scores on a test of political knowledge), which led them to be less willing to consider other political viewpoints – a phenomenon the researchers called ‘the earned dogmatism effect’.
The consequences of intellectual overconfidence can be seen in the debates surrounding controversial contemporary issues. Take the matter of genetically modified (GM) foods, which are overwhelmingly considered to be safe based on current scientific knowledge. Research has shown that people who hold the strongest anti-GM views, believing that they are harmful, are the most inclined to overestimate their relevant knowledge.
Approaching issues with a beginner’s mind or a healthy dose of intellectual humility can help to counter the disadvantages of intellectual hubris. People who are more intellectually humble actually know more, presumably because they are more receptive to new information. Similarly, being intellectually humble is associated with open-mindedness and a greater willingness to be receptive to other people’s perspectives – arguably just the tonic that our politically febrile world needs today.
Therefore, fostering your own beginner’s mind will help you to become more knowledgeable, less overconfident and more willing to engage with others – traits that are also increasingly sought after by leading employers. By practising being flexible rather than dogmatic, more humble and less brazen, you will be sensitive to other people’s perspectives and needs, making you a better sister, brother, father, mother, partner and friend. With eyes and mind wide open, it’s so much easier to enjoy the wonders of the world, to grow, to learn and to listen.