There are people I refer to as "high-IQ idiots." They have high IQs...but don't use them. Ph.D. in Economics are some of the worst -- semi-autistic geek/nerds bereft of almost all common sense.
I define intelligence as being able to tolerate ambiguity. These people don't see everything as either/or.
The example I use is that of the theory of evolution. I was surprised to find many believers in it were close-minded fanatics. Everything was either/or to them. They were in fact religious fanatics. They couldn't handle the fact the evidence for one species turning into another is non-existent (I'm not saying it didn't happen; no one has any idea how it happened, and there is no evidence it did).
I was amazed at the rationalization and indeed frothing at the mouth. On the other hand, the more intelligent people said, "Well, if it did happen, evidence will be found. In the meantime, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it, and I'm certainly not going to scream and rant." In other words, they could tolerate ambiguity, and didn't see things as either/or ("Either evolution exists, or you're a close-minded religious fanatic who is blind to the facts").
These people are ideologues, as Russel Kirk defined them: "Ideology means political fanaticism...[they] maintain that human nature and society may be perfected by mundane, secular means..."
I'd say, if anything, more intelligent people believe in both/and, rather than either or. And idealogues always believe in either/or, whether they believe in Communism or fascism or anarchism.
People who are smart understand just how little they know. There is some humility involved. People who aren't that smart -- even if they have high IQs and a pocketful of advanced degrees -- are the dumb ones, because they think they know the answers. They suffer from the opposite of humility -- hubris.
People who are dumb, even if they have high IQs, politicize everything, including things that shouldn't be politicized. And when things are politicized, things are always black or white, with no shades of grey.
When people politicize everything, they become so close-minded they lack the ability to consider someone's viewpoint. In other words, they have no imagination. And without imagination, there is a decided lack of empathy -- the ability to consider another's viewpoint without necessarily agreeing with it.
Stupidity and blindness, to paraphrase Jacob Burckhardt, are "made worse by our vulgar hatred of anything that is different...by our identification of the moral with the precise and our incapacity to understand the multivarious.."
And when the dumb ones get some kind of political power and can impose their views on people, that's when the trouble really starts.
1 comment:
The biosphere a spectrum. When we look at any fossil we see one photon on that spectrum.
Demanding to see a species changing into another is like saying a rainbow doesn't exist because you can't see a color evolving into another- each color is a true color, not halfway between two other colors- if that is how you wish to see it.
You can be shown two fossils that are of species close together on that spectrum, but the creationist will always want to see a species between those two. If you are able to show him one, then he'll demand to see the species between those three. Ad infinitum. And this could theoretically go on until you had every individual organism that ever lived placed along that spectrum- but only a small percentage fossilized and have been found.
So, the smart thing to do is just use the knowledge gained, and the possibilities suggested, by evolution and don't try to convince the creationists. I don't always do "the smart thing".
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