Feigning Intelligence: Difference between revisions

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[[File:~~tumblr_lpuqkbYUNE1qk0oipo1_500_3153~~.jpg|link=Portal 2|frame|"Oh, pardon me. I was just, y'know, reading up on some Machiavelli. Which I do all the time, of course. Because that's what smart robots do."]]

[[File:tumblr lpuqkbYUNE1qk0oipo1 500 3153.jpg|link=Portal 2|frame|"Oh, pardon me. I was just, y'know, reading up on some Machiavelli. Which I do all the time, of course. Because that's what smart robots do."]]

{{quote|''"When in doubt, look intelligent!"''|'''Garrison Keillor'''}}

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== Film ==

* Liz Hurley's character in [[The Film of the Series]] of ''[[My Favorite Martian (film)|My Favorite Martian]]'' is a [[The Brainless Beauty|glamorous hard-hitting reporter... who is also a complete airhead]]. She only sounds smart because a scriptwriter feeds her lines through a hidden earpiece.

* Played straight for most of the 2006 remake of ''[[The Pink Panther]]''... mostly. As an example, after hearing a murder victim's last words were "Oh, it's you!", Clouseau orders all people in the city with the name "Yu" to be detained for interrogation. Naturally, he's saddled up with a Chinese woman rattling off in Chinese. After the interrogation, his partner asks if he can even understand Chinese. Clouseau acts all offended and replies something along the lines of "Do you think I would do all this if I didn't understand Chinese?". {{spoiler|Seeing as he's been [[Feigning Intelligence]] for most of the movie, his partner (and the audience) look unconvinced... until the end of the movie when a flashback reveals not only was Clouseau telling the truth but the woman gave him a vital clue.}}

* Played straight for most of the 2006 remake of ''[[The Pink Panther]]''... mostly. As an example, after hearing a murder victim's last words were "Oh, it's you!", Clouseau orders all people in the city with the name "Yu" to be detained for interrogation. Naturally, he's saddled up with a Chinese woman rattling off in Chinese. After the interrogation, his partner asks if he can even understand Chinese. Clouseau acts all offended and replies something along the lines of "Do you think I would do all this if I didn't understand Chinese?". {{spoiler|Seeing as he's been Feigning Intelligence for most of the movie, his partner (and the audience) look unconvinced... until the end of the movie when a flashback reveals not only was Clouseau telling the truth but the woman gave him a vital clue.}}

** Clousseau doesn't pretend to be intelligent, he actually believes he's this massively skilled badass, though granted, when his beliefs betray him [[I Meant to Do That|he will try to play it off as on purpose.]]

* Otto in ''[[A Fish Called Wanda]]'', who liberally quotes Nietzsche. Wanda manages to see through his pretensions by the midpoint of the movie.

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* In ''[[The Muppet Show]]'', Sam the Eagle may constantly seek some culture in the show, but considering he thinks [[Ludwig Van Beethoven|Beethoven]] was a playwright, it's obvious he doesn't know the first thing about culture.

* In ''[[Doctor Who]]'', [[The Nth Doctor|the Tenth Doctor stated to his younger incarnation]] that he wore his glasses not because he needed them, but because it made him look clever. Of course, the Doctor is very smart to begin with, [[There Is No Such Thing as Notability|but still.]]

** It has also been theorized that the Tenth Doctor, who frequently claims himself to be clever, is double-[[Feigning Intelligence]]-[[Obfuscating Stupidity]], or something. (See the Poirot example above.)

** It has also been theorized that the Tenth Doctor, who frequently claims himself to be clever, is double-Feigning Intelligence-[[Obfuscating Stupidity]], or something. (See the Poirot example above.)

** The Doctor has been getting into trouble by pretending to be more knowledgeable than he actually is since ''The Aztecs'' in 1964.

* Maxwell Smart from the ''[[Get Smart]]'' series did this all the time, to everyone. He didn't always have someone to help him feign competence either, and on those occasions got found out quite quickly.

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== Webcomics ==

* [[Subverted Trope|Subverted]] in ''[[Bob and George]]'': Mega Man did this by making up a totally random and [[Techno Babble]]-filled solution to the series' [[Timey-Wimey Ball|major time-line issues]], and, totally by accident, made a discovery worthy of a Nobel prize. He thought everybody else was just making fun of him.

* ''[[Misfile]]''. Debate continues on whether Rumisiel is genuinely admitting [[Feigning Intelligence]] or displaying [[Obfuscating Stupidity]] to maintain his [[The Stoner|image]] in [http://www.misfile.com/index.php?page=992 this strip].

* ''[[Misfile]]''. Debate continues on whether Rumisiel is genuinely admitting Feigning Intelligence or displaying [[Obfuscating Stupidity]] to maintain his [[The Stoner|image]] in [http://www.misfile.com/index.php?page=992 this strip].

* [http://xkcd.com/451/ This] ''[[xkcd]]'' comic tries to ''quantify'' this, by the time span during which you can get away with faking competence on different topics.

* ''[[The Noob]]'' had "Sir Darkblade Wolfeyes Orcbane Raislin de Urden von Strudel" from a Roleplayers' Guild explaining what "Deus Ex Machina" is [http://www.thenoobcomic.com/index.php?pos=104 here].

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== [[Real Life]] ==

* One of the reasons thought to have contributed to the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates' execution was that he went around pissing off people in power (such as politicians, and, more drastically, religious figures) off by asserting they were doing this.

* There are known garbage texts that can pass as "scientific" in nonsense-rich environments and really made it to the respective journals or conferences... Including automatically generated ones. If you want to hunt impostor "scientists" in comfort using a robot decoy-~~duck--go~~ ahead, it works.

* There are known garbage texts that can pass as "scientific" in nonsense-rich environments and really made it to the respective journals or conferences... Including automatically generated ones. If you want to hunt impostor "scientists" in comfort using a robot decoy-duck—go ahead, it works.

** ''Social Text'' published ''Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity'' article (It claimed to be about using quantum theories of gravity to stick it to The Man) which turned out to be a parody made of statements specifically designed to be a solipsist nonsense and logically disconnected claims. <ref>They even managed to insult themselves further by rejecting an explanation text as not meeting their intellectual standards after publishing this mockery (it apparently didn't "Transgress the Boundaries" enough).</ref> [http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/ Papers by Alan Sokal] has a full story, papers and a simple recipe how to bake such a cake at will.

** ''Social Text'' published ''Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity'' article (It claimed to be about using quantum theories of gravity to stick it to The Man) which turned out to be a parody made of statements specifically designed to be a solipsist nonsense and logically disconnected claims.<ref>They even managed to insult themselves further by rejecting an explanation text as not meeting their intellectual standards after publishing this mockery (it apparently didn't "Transgress the Boundaries" enough).</ref> [http://www.physics.nyu.edu/faculty/sokal/ Papers by Alan Sokal] has a full story, papers and a simple recipe how to bake such a cake at will.

** WMSCI 2005 accepted an article ''Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and Redundancy'', which is a pile of robot-generated garbage. Then guys went to that conference, held a "technical" session and with straight faces gave ''several more'' randomly generated garbage speeches. [http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/ There's a story, papers, movie] ~~-- and~~ SCIgen itself, released under GPL.

** WMSCI 2005 accepted an article ''Rooter: A Methodology for the Typical Unification of Access Points and Redundancy'', which is a pile of robot-generated garbage. Then guys went to that conference, held a "technical" session and with straight faces gave ''several more'' randomly generated garbage speeches. [http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/ There's a story, papers, movie]—and SCIgen itself, released under GPL.

** [http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo/ Here] you can get random Postmodernism texts online, and even permanent links <ref>randseed-based, obviously</ref> to the particular essay, if you liked it.

* Any agenda-based statistics study. I.e. if they're paid to prove a causal link exists instead of determine if one does, they will use this.