 Here's an uncomfortable question. Can you accurately judge somebody's intelligence based on their beliefs? Now the polite answer is no, of course not. But my own experiences make me think otherwise. Specifically when people defend plainly inaccurate beliefs, it can reveal a few things. The amount of research they've done, their intellectual integrity, or perhaps their ability to think critically. Ultimately I believe we can make these inferences for one reason. Truth is discoverable. Anybody with a sincerely open mind, the tools for research, and the capacity to critically think can discover true knowledge about the world. Though it doesn't necessarily mean of course they will. Now throughout this article I'll be referencing intellectual integrity so allow me to define upfront what I mean. I'm talking about a genuine commitment to acknowledge the truth wherever it leads. Even if it means rejecting previously held beliefs. It means having a humble, open, and self-critical mind. Without intellectual integrity it doesn't really matter how much research you've done nor how smart you are. If your beliefs aren't guided by the pursuit of truth, your conclusions are likely to be arbitrary and false. So before everybody assumes I'm just an elitist snob, let me clarify a couple of things. First, I believe that most inaccurate conclusions are simply due to a lack of research or intellectual integrity. Not necessarily a lack of mental capacity. One primary reason for this lack of research is the catastrophic error of intellectual dismissal, which is something I've talked a little bit about in the past. Second, merely holding an inaccurate belief does not mean somebody is stupid regardless of how wild the belief appears. There are a hundred reasons why somebody might hold wrong beliefs not related to their intelligence or intellectual integrity. If I was raised in a sheltered environment where all the textbooks and people around me claim that the moon was made of cheese, believing so wouldn't mean I was stupid. Let's take an easy case. When I was a child, I believed in Santa Claus. Everybody around me told me the same fanciful story, which I believed to be true. No problem. As I got older, my critical reasoning got a little sharper and I eventually rejected this belief. But imagine in the 21st century with access to the internet if I currently believed that Santa Claus was real. Now, I think it would be reasonable to assume one of three things. Number one, I'm not interested in the truth. Or number two, I haven't done enough research. And or number three, I do not have the capacity for critical reasoning. It becomes reasonable to make inferences about somebody's intellectual integrity or intelligence only if they refuse to change their beliefs when presented with superior arguments. Practically everybody experiences this change as they grow out of childhood. If an adult believes everything identically as he believed in childhood, we can probably make some reasonable assumptions about his mind. This might sound obvious when talking about Santa Claus, so let's take a more difficult case, economics. You might have heard of Paul Krugman. He's an economist and writer and he won a Nobel Prize in economics. He's also a vocal proponent of raising the minimum wage. I won't make the case here, but suffice to say, raising the minimum wage is bad economic policy. The information is freely available for anybody with an open mind to discover and the case is overwhelming. So what then can we conclude about Paul Krugman? I'd say two things, one more controversial than the other. I don't think Paul Krugman is stupid, and I don't think he's unfamiliar with sound economic arguments. I do think, quite confidently, that he is not intellectually integritous. He is a shill in support of progressive ideology, regardless of that ideology's accuracy. But here's the provocative part. To the extent that Paul Krugman is intellectually integritous and has researched the minimum wage, his conclusions must come from a lack of intelligence. I don't see another option, given the fact that the minimum wage is clearly bad economic policy. I realize that sounds terrible, but enough resources exist for anybody with an open mind and an internet connection with enough time to understand why the minimum wage harms the economy. But again, personally, I don't think Paul's stupid. I just think he values ideology more than accuracy. If I'm correct, then it implies the following. People who are capable, open-minded, and do enough research will often arrive at the same conclusions. The truth. Again, this also correlates with my own personal experiences. Of course, it may simply reflect my own bias, but those individuals whom I perceive sincerely as pursuing the truth almost always hold very similar core beliefs as I do, whether philosophic or political. But this shouldn't shock anybody if indeed objective truth is discoverable, if people arrive at their conclusions for a reason. Of course, I don't mean to imply that all intelligent truth seekers agree on everything. That's not even close to being true. The gray areas where objective truth is unclear greatly outnumber the black and white areas. What is the ontological status of universals, for example? Well, extremely intelligent people can disagree with each other on this question and for good reason. But in my own limited experience, nearly all the disciplines I've studied have basic fundamental truths which can be discovered. In economics, the problem with the minimum wage is clear. In philosophy, the problems with thinking that we can know no objective truth are clear and discoverable to everybody, even in something like a physical discipline like the martial arts. There are core principles which can be rationally understood by those who are open to discovery. Consider Ptolemy as a final example. Ptolemy was a brilliant guy who came up with a bunch of theories on different topics. He developed the Ptolemaic model of astronomy, a theory about the movement of heavenly bodies. The predictions of his theory were incredibly accurate and they meshed with the earlier works of Aristotle, and they were consistent with a dominant strain of metaphysical thought at his time. If you were a smart, integritous young man, you could check Ptolemy's predictions and measurements, and you would find, without using modern tools of course, that his predictions were accurate. The problem is, as reasonable as useful as those ideas were, they were wrong. His theory relied on the Earth being the center of the universe, which apparently it isn't. Everybody who believed so was wrong. Obviously this doesn't mean that Ptolemy and all of his followers were stupid or disingenuous. It simply means that enough evidence accumulated to challenge his model and that evidence was coherently explained by a superior theory of heliocentricism. Ah, but what about the dogmatist who insists on the Ptolemaic model, regardless of the superior arguments? He's the one I want to focus on. I think we can conclude one of three things. That individual is ultimately not concerned for the truth, or he hasn't done enough research, or he outright lacks the capacity to critically analyze. Given our limited intellectual status humans, our best theories in astronomy are likely wrong. But that's no problem. Inaccuracies can be corrected over time. Once a superior theory is discovered, we can each critically analyze it and determine whether our old beliefs should be discarded or not. Now to be honest, I'm still working out the implications of these thoughts. I don't know the ratio between the disingenuous, the uninformed, and the inept. The kind and youthful part of me wants to give everybody the benefit of the doubt. The harsh pessimist in me isn't so charitable. Regardless, this I can say for sure. Intelligence is not determined by the accuracy of your conclusions. What matters is the ability to adjust your beliefs in relation to the best arguments. And when somebody dogmatically insists on inaccurate beliefs, I think they reveal more about themselves than they intend. Thanks for watching.