My own theory is that really bad decisions often require a degree of intelligence as they are often driven by sheer hubris rather than calm logical thinking.

Just because you're intelligent doesn't mean you're not irrational. Having intelligence is pretty meaningless except in IQ tests and similar puzzles. Applying your intelligence effectively is what it's all about.

Having intelligence is quite important. Otherwise you have a higher propensity to react with emotions and do irrational things.

See : Modern society

I'm not so sure high intelligence really protects you from reacting with emotions or act irrationally. Plenty of intelligent people can still react very emotionally or even irrationally. Though I suppose reacting intellectually has a higher pay-off for them than for most.

Having intelligence in most cases just means you're better at post-hoc justification of your emotionally-driven decisions.

Agreed, however those who arent intelligent repeat the same emotional responses over and over. Intelligence gives you the possibility of changing that, unintelligent dont have that possibility.

This makes sense. You can make terrible personal decisions (ie, starting a meth habit, fighting a bear) at any intelligence level.

But to make poor decisions on a scale that affects many others, you generally need the intelligence to rise to some level of power.

(There are of course exceptions, like starting a brushfire, etc)

I liken it to being tall. Some people are tall. They can do things more easily than others. No one says that height is a myth.

People get really defensive around intelligence though. Everyone wants to be at least average if not above average. If they can't claim it in one area, they'll try to redefine intelligence to include themselves. And we do have the habit of mistaking institutional knowledge for intelligence.

I can't agree with this at all.

Height is an objective and one-dimensional measure. It measures your ability to do a single thing: reach objects that are farther off of the ground.

I think we really do humanity a disservice if we define intelligence that way. The brain is capable of so many other things.

Surely you have known people who were bright (or brilliant) in some areas and lacking in others.

I've met people who were more or less knowledgeable in certain areas, yes. I've met people who were more or less skilled in certain areas, yes.

But for people who I would consider as intelligent, it's not a result of just knowledge. Or just skills.

I would trust their ability to "get" concepts they've been previously ignorant of relatively quickly. The wheels just spin faster.

And a lot like height, there's diminishing returns and what not. I can get a step ladder, then being tall is just a fact. Being intelligent can help you get a concept quicker, but once we both understand it, there's no effective difference.

But no one gets defensive about height. Or strength. Or anything with visible qualifiers. Which is funny, because intelligent people are better at thinking in the abstract and intelligence and the results of it are abstract.