The following quote is by evolutionary biologist, Diana Fleishman. Her ideas fit with my understanding that good science is a very special and rare kind of cognition that happens only within a carefully designed environment where we actively and incessantly seek out other peoples’ criticism of our own ideas in order to avoid our self-imposed intellectual blindness. Encouraging criticism of each others’ favorite ideas is not a sport most people enjoy. They’d rather assume that they have excellent intellectual hygiene so that they can blithely go about their days honking their tribal horns.

Human intelligence is incredibly useful but it doesn’t safeguard you against having false beliefs, because that’s not what intelligence is for. Intelligence is associated with coming up with more convincing bullshit and with being a better liar, but not associated with a better ability to recognizeone’s own bias. Unfortunately, intelligence has very little influence on your ability to rationally evaluate your own beliefs, or undermine what’s called “myside bias.”

The dark side of smart is that whenever we do good works, and cooperate, we draw from our manipulative past. The even darker side of smart is that competition doesn’t just select an ability to manipulate but also an adaptive ability to be unpredictable. And one of the best ways to be unpredictable is to not know yourself. So we have evolution to thank for shielding us from complete self-knowledge. As a result, most of our own minds are shrouded in darkness. Perhaps that’s for the best. We might not like what we’d see.