[David Sklansky]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

2. There is a strong psychological need to believe I am wrong among those who are either too lazy or untalented to learn the stuff that needs to be learned in order to apply it to these endeavors.


[/ QUOTE ]

david, while i agree with the point of your post strongly, it evident that a similar critcism to the one above could be made of your general argument.
it could be argued that you may have a strong psychological need to believe the value of math is greater than it actually is because it is your strength. i see this constantly in your posts, that you praise the skill set you possess. sure, mathematical and logical acumen are incredibly useful in almost all areas of life, but you seem to just conclusively believe that it would make you better at something than people "slightly superior" to you without any kind of empirical evidence.
this is just as frustrating to me as the general dismissal of the use of math by the general public because it's the same basic (flawed) assumption: that you know better and there's no sense in actually proving it because the other people (be they quants or the math-phobic) clearly just dont understand.

[/ QUOTE ]

The fact that the it benefits me if my theory is true doens't make it not true. And the reason I believe it is true, aside from any bias, is simple observation. The more you look at endeavors and who is good at them, the more you realize that it is the math saavy who are more likely to excel at them. Of course it is important when making this observation to not be misled by the fact that 90% or more of the best are not math saavy.