文章探讨了人类能力普遍存在的“尖峰”现象，即个体在特定领域可能表现出极高的天赋和能力（如“Savant”），但在其他领域则可能表现平平（如“Midwit”）。这种现象在普通人、专业人士乃至世界级专家身上都普遍存在，例如在物理学和几何学上造诣极深的科幻作家格雷格·伊根，却可能对智能的上限和扩张性持有保守观点；埃隆·马斯克在航天工程领域表现卓越，但在加密货币领域却可能显得力不从心。文章指出，将个体在某一领域的不足推广到其所有领域是一种常见的认知偏差。我们应认识到，个体能力的分布是不均衡的，不应仅凭其在不擅长领域的表现来评判其整体智力或能力。理解并尊重这种“尖峰”特质，有助于我们更准确地认识和利用他人的才能。

💡 **个体能力的高度专业化与局限性**：文章的核心观点是，人类的能力分布呈现出一种“尖峰”形态，即个体在特定领域可能拥有卓越的才能和深刻的见解（成为“Savant”），但在其他领域则可能表现平平，甚至显得“平庸”（成为“Midwit”）。这种“尖峰”现象并非罕见，而是普遍存在于不同层次的人群中，包括普通人、各行各业的专家，甚至在各自领域达到顶尖水平的人物。例如，一位在地理学上知识渊博的人，可能在政治见解上缺乏深度；一位擅长解决生活难题的人，可能在导航方面束手无策；一位在经济学上见解独到的人，可能不熟悉微积分。这种能力上的不均衡性是人之常态。

🚀 **世界级专家也存在能力“尖峰”**：文章进一步指出，即使是那些在各自领域被誉为世界级的人物，也同样受到“尖峰”现象的影响。例如，科幻作家格雷格·伊根在物理学和几何学上展现出惊人的掌握力，其作品被认为是顶尖的科幻小说，但他却可能对智能的上限或扩张性持有相对保守的观点。另一位例子是埃隆·马斯克，他在推动火星探索和工程实现方面贡献卓著，展现了在“原子世界”中将事物付诸实践的卓越能力，但在狗狗币（DOGE）等领域，他的努力似乎并未带来显著成效。这表明，即使是顶尖人才，其卓越也局限于特定的专业范畴。

🧠 **避免以偏概全的认知偏差**：文章批评了一种常见的认知倾向，即当观察到某人在一个领域表现不佳时，就轻易地将其推断为在所有领域都缺乏能力。作者承认自己有时也会犯这种错误。尽管存在“g因子”（一般智力因素）的理论支持，即持续的失败可能确实反映了智力上的不足，但更大的问题在于，当我们不了解一个人在哪些方面投入了精力、积累了经验（“character points”），就因其在不关心的领域表现不佳而将其视为“笨蛋”。这种基于有限观察而产生的笼统判断，会严重扭曲我们对他人能力的认知。

🌐 **理解“尖峰”有助于更准确的评价和合作**：文章强调，我们构建对世界的认知模型是基于零散的生活经验，而我们对某些专家群体或人群的唯一接触，往往是在他们“不在状态”或不熟悉的领域。这极易导致我们对他们最佳状态下的能力产生误判。在实际应用和合作中，最能发挥一个人潜力的状态才是最重要的。因此，文章呼吁我们“宽恕他们的平庸，因为他们也是天才”，即理解并接纳人类能力的“尖峰”特质，认识到在某些方面表现不佳并不否定其在其他领域的卓越才能，从而能够更全面、更准确地评价和利用他人的能力。

Published on November 3, 2025 12:00 AM GMT

Someone can be a savant in one area and a midwit in another. Another way to phrase this is that specialization of labour is common, and specialists don't generalize well outside their speciality. Or: knowledge transfer is hard. 

For instance, I have a family member who is very knowledgeable when it comes to geography, but they've sadly been infested with TV brain worms so they're hopeless when it comes to politics. Or another family member who is very good at MacGyver-eseque solutions to daily problems, but somehow cannot navigate to save their lives. Or a friend of mine who is consistently insightful when it comes to econ yet somehow doesn't know calculus. 

This sort of "spikiness" in capabilities is the norm amongst humans. It holds for me, you, and even those who are world-class. Like: 

1) Greg Egan. He has deeply impressive mastery of physics and geometry, produces some of the best SF known to man, and yet has silly takes arguing that intelligent minds cap out around human level or would naturally not be expansionist. 

2) Elon Musk. If we set foot on Mars, Musk is the human most likely to have caused it to happen. This isn't just business acumen. People who work for SpaceX acknowledge his engineering ability. So clearly a master of getting things done in (parts of) the world of atoms. But look at DOGE, where Musk burnt through huge amounts of political capital to no real end. 

And it's more general than that, really. Any one of the people I mentioned has their own areas of expertise in which I'd expect them (to some degree) to outperform others. But only in those areas. 

You would not go to Terrence Tao for medical advice, or for help designing your house or doing your taxes or so on. Sure, given time, he could do a better job than most experts. But obviously he's not going to do that. 

And yet, for some strange reason, I often see someone be incompetent in one area and then immediately generalize to a lack of competence in all other areas. Heck, I do this too. 

Now, obviously this has some merit to it. There is a g-factor after all, and if you see someone persistently try and fail to resolve an issue, that is evidence they just aren't that sharp. 

That's not a problem. The problem comes when you don't know what someone else cares about, where they've invested their character points, and then rule them out as a moron if they perform incompetently in an area they don't really care about being good at. This is an issue. 

Now, obviously you don't see most experts loudly giving stupid takes on topics you know a lot about, because you don't see most experts do anything really. But we're animals that build our models of the world from patch-works of lived experience, and sometimes our only lived experience with some groups of experts, or groups of people, come through seeing them from afar when they aren't in their elements. And that skews our perception of how competent people can be at their best. And when you're trying to make use of people, the best you can get out of them is what matters. 

Forgive them their midwittery, for they are also savants.

Discuss