Jabberwock xeno said:
Now that I have got that out of the way, I can contribute. educatiton can only do so much. the things that I belive that make people "not intellgent" are these factors:
- bias
- unwillgness to see things from a diffrent point of view
- not thinking beyond soicitial, cultiral, ethical etc standerds or rules
and so on. I have a good example, but it involves relgion and science, so please read this with an open mind:
For example, one thing that contally baffles me is how hyper-relgious people will not execpt evolution at all, and how ultra science... uh... people *selffacepalm* refuse to accept any fort of relgoius explanation. There is nothing in the bible/torah/koran that goes aganist the theory of evolution. likewise, there is nothing in science that indicates the absence of reliogious enitiys. evolution just says that if a fish is born with a defect that makes it more likly to survive, it will be more kiley to pass that defect to it's offspring. eventaully, the defect will be a standerd trait of the species. that's commen sense, it'd be nearly impossble for that NOT to happen without something purposly affecting the process. why can't anyone think that maybe god created the universe etc etc, and evoultion took place after the first living benings were created? I do not nessarcly think that, but you get the idea.
I can go on on diffrent examples and such, but I'm getting bored.
Bias is inherent. If you have any opinions at all that is. The only way you can be free of bias is through complete apathy. Your second point is a better gauge I think, unwillingness to see things from a different point of view. Open-mindedness can help to serve as a measure of a person's intelligence, their ability to take their own values and reconsider them to verify that they are in fact valid. Ability to think beyond the limitations of cultural/societal boundaries may also serve as a fair measure, though that is pretty much the same thing.
Regarding your example, however, there are many problems with compatibility between religion and science. The problems leap out at you as soon as you start reading a holy book, because they tend to start out with a creation story. Seeing as many people tend to believe their holy books literally, and science tells us a very different story for the way we came into being, we have an issue there. Science is intended to be about open-mindedness, and willingness to change the way we view reality based on observation and discovery. Religion is intended to be a constant mindset, unwavering regardless of the events that transpire.
By virtue of the very dogmatic approach that religion tends to have on reality, such as claims to moral objectivity (ie: We are just, if you disagree with us, you are unjust) and claims to the age of the earth and the creation of humans that contradict the facts that we have which strongly indicate a much older earth, and the evolution of humans from apes, I think that it is fair to claim that religion is far more closed-minded than is science. And by your very own standards, that would place the mindset, and those who possess that mindset into the "unintelligent" category.
Of course intelligence itself is subjective, and really attempting to define which people are and are not intelligent is really an enormous waste of time. Ignorance is more objective however, and we can combat ignorance with education, which is not a waste of time.
For those who actually possess the mindset that they are smarter than average: nearly everybody (>50%) of people believe that they are smarter than the average person. Ironically, your ego is also average, just as your intelligence is likely to be.
In answer to the originally posed question from the OP: Take the safety labels off of everything.
