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Why Smart People Often Fail to See the Truth — And How It Leads to Disaster
When intelligence blinds us, we miss the truth we need most, and the consequences can be terrifying.
It’s strange-yet-very tragic to see a bright mind become foolish. It’s not ignorance per se, not simply a lack of knowledge, but rather a denial of knowledge. The ancients Greeks called this “amathia”, which is ironic since intelligence becomes a trap of its own making, leading the learned to error and even cruelty.
I’ve experienced the like, both in myself and in people I admire. It is tricky because it tries to pass for wisdom, and makes the host feel invulnerable.
The Smarter You Are, the Harder It Is to Admit You’re Wrong
When I was younger, though I was an average student academically, I had certainty about everything. The world was black and white, and I would tell people how much pleasure I had taking an argument apart, disassembling the other sides reasoning and using logic like a club.
But I got older, and I met people, smart, highly educated, even brilliant people, who simply were unwilling to let go of evidence that contradicted them. One of my professors, a well known biologist, would scoff at climate…
