Yeah, you're that dumb.

I had the pleasure of watching President Ahmadinejad's talk at Columbia University on TV today. I wasn't against his speaking. I just thought it should be fair. Okay, Columbia isn't UC but I think it's pretty ridiculous that Ahmadinejad's allowed to speak while Larry Summers isn't. And as of now, we don't know yet if former SECDEF Rumsfeld will be allowed to speak at Stanford. But I'm not going to get into that right now.

Regarding concerns of legitimacy-- I have to say that I'm not worried about him gaining any here in the US. I mean, if you support him now, you clearly have an agenda at odds with the general spirit of the USA. The concern I have is for the weight of such an event viewed from the position of the Iranian national. Any of us with any sophistication know that the Ivy's and higher education in general aren't what it used to be. But I suspect that the average Iranian national is similar to the average Chinese or Japanese national in that their view of Columbia was shaped by the efforts of much better men than the ones who run the school now. The danger is that those who were on the fence about Ahmandinejad in Iran might lean towards supporting him because he has been officially "sanctioned" by Columbia University. I don't know that for sure as I've never run into Iranians who were on the fence regarding the current regime.

But that's not really what surprised me. Ahmadinejad got quite of few rounds of applause. The man is simply uneducated. His constant resorting to the Socratic method was a transparent rhetorical tactic and should have fooled no one. It was the kind on conversation I would have with a petulant child. "Did you break the vase?" "What? You've never broken anything in your life?" This goes back to the common misinterpretation of the Christian idea of "let he who is without sin, throw the first stone." It's the end result of relativism. If everthing is the same, then nothing has meaning.

But again, that's not the major point I'm trying to make. I live here in San Francisco which has no shortage of truly smart people. Unfortunately, those people are still few and far between and I spend a lot of my time sifting through people who either fancy themselves truly intelligent or know enough to fake it and waste 20 minutes of my time. Let me address first the environmental nutbags. There's so much to say about this but I'll confine it to discussing one particularly controversial author- Bjorn Lomborg of "The Skeptical Environmentalist" fame. I was turned on to him because Scientific America devoted an entire issue blasting this guy. Anybody who pisses that many people off that badly has to be saying something interesting. What I leanred after reading his book was similar to the lesson I learned after Professor Sam Huntington's book "Who Are We?" Simply put, most people-- when reading about a topic they are emotional about-- have no ability to read the words as they are written much less read critically. Scientist criticized Lomborg's work because he wasn't a scientist. He never claimed to be. He's a statistician. He took their numbers and applied hard statistic to them. I've said all along and for many years that scientist are really good at finding the data. They are considerably less skilled at telling you what it means. That an entirely different skill set.

They screw up in the same way intelligence operatives do. Your job is to gather empirical facts. Somebody who sees the big pricture will put in into context. The moment you start worry about the context, you can no longer honest gather the data. Scientist can tell me through their research that the sea levels will rise between half a foot and 2 feet the next century. Beyond that-- what that means-- well, that's less clear. Lomborg was just trying to give a different narrative-- a different interpretation of the same facts that the scientist discovered. You can't argue with his numbers because he uses the same ones that the environmentalist use. And to argue with his metodology shows a poor understanding of statistics-- a daunting subject all its own. He may be right. He may be wrong but there's no honestly denying that his narrative is valid.

And that the real limit of the human brain. We don't understand things except in context. That's why motion simulators work so well on us. Our brains are particularly easy to fool. Without context, we have no meaning and the very nature of how we acquired a piece of knowledge shapes how we view it. Think about it. Everything we think about and believe comes with a story. It may commonly accepted or one we just tell ourselves but it a narrative nonetheless. Because we need that story, we often give it precedence over the facts. If the story is compelling enough, who cares if the facts don't support it? A good story is a great smoke screen for a lack of facts. What happens more than that though is just learing the narrative and forgeting the facts entirely if you've bothered to learn them at all.

I've noticed an alarming trend in the supposedly learned class of the greater West. These days, we tend to judge intelligence by what a person believes rather than how he thinks. If he shares these certain set of beliefs, he is then smart. If not, well he's uneducated and stupid. I'm reminded of what my 8th grade Algebra teacher said to me. "Rich, you have to show me your work." I answered, "But I have the answer right there." He replied, "How do I know you didn't cheat and just copy the answers?" Most folks these days just copy the answers. They say what they think will make them sound smart. Ask them why they think the way they do-- to provide a solid philosophical underpinning for their beliefs and they can't. That's not thinking. That's mimicking and I have a bird that can do that.

Ask somebody why they're against the war and you'll get a truckload of reasons. Ask them to explain any one of them and I'm sure you'll be met with a blank stare or some ridiculous monologue. Basically, I've given up being nice about this. I'm taking a page out of Christopher Hitchens' book. If somebody says I hurt their feelings, I'll answer that I'm still waiting to hear their point. The sad fact of the matter is that many of the people who are supposed to be our smartest out here are often the least able to provide context. Sitting behind a computer all day may help you create the next great internet browser but that's about it. Like Elie Wiesel said, the world should not be trusted to the scholars because they have a tendency to turn people into abstractions.

So I challenge you. Next time you say you believe something, really ask yourself why. Question your assumptions. That way, if we ever meet, I won't have to be rude and call you dumb.