Regardless of how intelligent we might, or might not actually be personally, we all tend to regard ourselves as being at least adequately intelligent in human terms. And when we consider the intelligence of the other animals that we share the planet with, we regard human intelligence as being comparatively high.
How high it would be considered, however, compared to that of aliens from another galaxy capable of reaching Earth, is questionable. On an inter-galactic IQ test, we might simply be rated together with our fellow primates.
If we look back over the 4,000 or so years of recorded human history, however, our species has progressed extraordinarily, and above all, technically, through the advance of science. This was unlikely to have occurred had our human intelligence not actually been relatively high.
While our recorded history bears adequate testimony to our earthly intelligence, it also, however, in its darker, violence- and conflict-stained pages, suggests the existence of another, entirely negative, human quality. This affects our lives adversely virtually as much as our intelligence does so positively. This negative quality is the inherent tendency of even intelligent people to reason stupidly at times, particularly in regard to politics.
By way of illustrating this assertion, consider a hypothetical meeting of the world’s most prominent political leaders, held to resolves a major international problem, such as the current wars in Ukraine, Gaza or Iran, or the abiding problem of racism. We may reasonably assume that a high average level of intelligence characterises the political leaders.
Good reason
Nevertheless, when the delegates rise from their chairs at the meeting’s conclusion, we have good reason to assume that the decisions finally arrived at are probably far from optimal. This will be so because they would have been arrived at entirely without the delegates having given any consideration whatsoever to the negative effect of their decisions, brought about by the inherent tendency common to each of them to reason stupidly in regard to political matters.
The ability to reason is the most important human cognitive faculty. Our intelligence finds expression through it and we use it to solve problems. Stupidity and poor judgement, on the other hand, are frequently generated by the counter-productive introduction of emotionally derived bias, prejudice, or unverifiable beliefs into what should be a strictly rational process.
Reason and emotion are the two equally important, but very different biological systems whereby we respond to the reality that we find ourselves in.
Bias and prejudice are common to all humans. We cannot escape them, and they no doubt each evolved to serve a positive biological function. They are highly counterproductive, however, when introduced into, and so impair, the strictly logical process of reasoning.
It was this realisation, in about the 16th century, that led to the rationalisation of science, and subsequently to the extraordinary benefits that were generated by Western society through the recognition and strict application of what is known as the scientific method.
Unverifiable beliefs
Figuratively, this consists of the scientist’s awareness that if he is to have any chance of truly understanding reality, before he puts on his white coat and enters his laboratory, he must leave all his personal biases, prejudices, and unverifiable beliefs outside the laboratory door.
Literally, the scientific method is principally the conscious exclusion of all emotion, not from humanity’s basic drive to investigate reality, but from the strictly logical and rational scientific procedure that necessarily governs any truly objective investigation of reality.
We are fully aware of the fact that the consequential advance of science is principally responsible for the extraordinary achievement of raising human society from a relatively primitive state to a higher civilisational level. That we have failed subsequently to also extend to the disastrous field of politics, the incredibly fruitful discovery and intellectual principle of excluding all emotion from the process of reasoning, speaks of our intellectual limits.
Scientists require extensive education to be able to achieve true objectivity, and so practise science effectively, and so greatly benefit society.
Principal source
Why have we not demanded the same level of education and intellectual objectivity of our politicians, the people who directly control society, and have always often been a source of society’s problems?
Frequent war, social conflict, and endlessly repeated mistakes are the cost to humanity of this intellectual failure: an ominous failure in a nuclear age. Their historical persistence through every generation also identifies us objectively as being intellectually stupid, while simultaneously and paradoxically being the most intelligent animal on the planet.
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The views of the writer are not necessarily the views of the Daily Friend or the IRR.
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