In my opinion, intelligence is not a unitary thing. Intelligence is a combination of acuity, experience, temperament, pattern-recognition, quickness, empathy, objectivity, and probably other qualities that don’t come to mind right now.
In the fall of 1999 I received a telephone call from a friend, who was in tears because she had heard the world would end in 2000 (which was shortly before her planned retirement.)
So unfair. Though confident she would eventually go to heaven, she was looking forward to some years of mundane pleasure.
My friend is not stupid. But she has what I would call an “accepting” frame of mind.
I suggested that the calendar’s moving from 1999 to 2000 was even less meaningful than her automobile’s odometer clicking past the 1000 mile point, and that she had nothing to worry about.
My favorite memory of the December 31, 1999 New Year’s Eve is watching a television comedian--how I wish I could remember her name! She said, “About 9PM Eastern Standard Time, I went into the store to buy a few things I needed before the party. When I was checking out, the clerk said to me, ‘Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?’
“No.”
She said, “Well, you had better do it, because the world is ending tonight at midnight.”
“Well, since the world is ending tonight at midnight—will you let me have these things for free?”
The clerk said, “No.”