You can be better without understanding how and why you’re better. In fact, that’s usually the case.

You are right.  But of course to that I’d say all the more fool them.

Yes, age is a signal of the quality of their introspection – but at a minimum if the introspection of older people is superior, they should be able to describe the conditions where it differs.  Otherwise, they have a poor understanding of the “experiments” they are undertaking in their mind, and as a result I find it difficult to trust their introspection 😉

It’s harder to get people to take you seriously when you’re young, so you fall back on analytical methods which have strong support in the academic community.  Nobody cares about the introspections of a 25 year old.

Also, I suspect it is the experiene that people have by an older age that makes them, on average, more able to answer normative questions – experience combined with introspection 😉