"Highly intelligent" but...

Look to the quiet ones, is the advice I've had. The majority are very careful on this subject.

One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.

George Orwell, Notes on Nationalism. Obviously writing about something else, (the purpose of American troops in WW2 being to crush an English revolution) and “ordinary people” can be foolish too, but a good point.

I don’t think it’s necessarily about intelligence or otherwise. It’s a quasi religious belief.

Woosh!

No. A mammal. I think.

Did they think it was a biscuit? (They would have been right!)

Good to see Bhogal already linked.

Re: elites, Matt Goodwin’s essay is helpful, as is the Aeon essay on epistemic bubbles and echo chambers and Endre Begby on ‘evidential preemption’.

(I hope to return with links when I am not on a train with intermittent 3G at best. )

I made a very similar observation in a thread I started this afternoon (A spectrum of stupidity).

I think this is why Helen Joyce and Kathleen Stock are so good at speaking and writing about this issue, precisely because they don't get bogged down in trying to be clever-clever with the biology. HJ uses her excellent knowledge of mathematics and logic and KS uses her deep understanding of philosophy. Of course people who have bought into the genderwoo will still say "What does Helen Joyce know about gender? She's a mathematician and a journalist," while spouting utter nonsense about the issue.

I would question whether all of them really believe the genderwoo, or simply put up a successful pretence of doing so?

DS works in an industry where admitting to being GC would probably kill his career prospects.
Over the last few years he has given the impression of being an 'ally' without ever doing anything to support this view. Basically the assumption about him has been that 'if you're not openly against us, you're presumably with us'.
He swerves any discussion/involvement in the issues and rants and offloads to me and his partner instead!

This decision has been based on an intelligent evaluation of the situation, and the fact that he needs to work to pay his bills.

He is relieved by the SC judgement and wants to find his tribe within the broader industry he workings in (the arts). They ARE there, but just take some finding...

I had one who'd got a degree in a biological subject and a very well known and sought out expert in animals categorically told me that for ovulation to occur in any species a male had to be present.

When he left we all looked at each other astounded and then burst out laughing.

I think the reason academics are getting mentioned is that they account for quite a few of the supposedly intelligent people mentioned by the OP. They have also been significantly responsible for teaching and promulgating this stuff. A minority of academics have spoken out and the consequences for them have not been great. Look at the way Kathleen Stock was treated. Not many GC academics at Sussex or in UCU, it would seem. UCU has been particularly vociferous about this under Jo Grady’s leadership. The union reps in my department were all gender woo proponents and I didn’t even get a reply when I wrote to one expressing concerns about the lack of support for Stock. So, no, not all academics — but too many of them.

They have their own sphere which they understand well. They believe the experts in other fields, assuming they are equally qualified.

Thus my boss can be exceptionally wide read and intelligent yet believes that DSDs are far commoner than most people think and that some people are born in the wrong body. The trans lobbyists- mermaids, stonewall- say it and they are the experts.
In his case it also connects with being liberal in terms of Gay rights, so predisposed to believe Stonewall and position himself in antithesis to those who are more broadly conservative. (Church field).

My guess is it’s a few things together:

1. elite bubble (isolated from real-world harms and implications)
2. elite bubble (social status depends on views and virtue, especially progressive-coded)
3. elite bubble (university ideological monoculture)
4. smart people find it easier to rationalise away objections, used to abstruseness being rewarded
5. autism / social isolation overlap
6. US political polarisation meant all left of centre slide into woke. (Perhaps also tied to decline in religiosity over same period)
7. maybe elite over-production? Lots of smart underemployed people seeking meaning?

A former boss of mine - not a scientist, but someone with absupposedly well-rounded education - once asked me whether a penguin was a mammal because 'they have 2 legs'.

Sometimes being intelligent just makes you better at being wrong. Look at Newton. Maybe the greatest mind the world has ever seen, and dedicated years of his life to some right shit.

Oh my goodness, yes.

I can think of someone that describes perfectly. And they are constantly wanging on about genderwoo without ever entirely committing to a position. It's very clearly all about the intellectual argument and knob halo polishing rather than any actual belief.

I think there are different types of intelligence. Falling for gender woo means people are not critical thinkers IMO, nor do they have common sense, at all.

Beliefs in all sorts of seemingly obviously untrue things are perfectly compatible with intelligence. Beliefs are often motivated by emotion, upbringing and culture rather than by intellectual thought, and are not easily overridden by intelligence.

Actually, historians and people doing cultural studies are some of the very least likely - we’re all very familiar with historical phenomena and how ideological mindsets come about at different times and in different cultures! You’ll find the historians some of the most sceptical, especially historians of science and medicine, who work on this kind of thing all the time.

The ones in my university who are most prey to it are film & theatre studies, modern languages, some of the lit people (though some very much not), and sociology/politics. Plus a few well meaning scientists who don’t really understand what it’s all about but think they must say what the students approve of.

There are lots of stealth-GC academics in universities (even those who are parents of gendery kids). The most vocal pro-genderwoo ones in my university are young childless women and gay men who want to look down with what the undergrads think these days.

DH one I think he went with be kind then slowly wised up and now is stealth GC.

Yes, but there's also self justification fallacy.

I've seen friends who identify as The Good Guys recently defend that band who chanted 'kill your local MP' onstage, for example. This is not a good thing to chant. But these people think its okay, because they're on the same side. See also 'the only good Tory is a dead Tory', and various other things that are actually not alright to say.

If you're chanting for people to be killed, or dehumanising people, you're not doing The Good Thing. See also David Tennant wishing Kemi Badenoch 'didn't exist anymore', for example.

I was going to suggest that there's a certain arrogance that comes with intelligence. If you know a lot and are usually right, you aren't used to being wrong and more importantly admitting you are wrong. That's something 'stupid people' do.

I was going to say this their identity is being smart so fear or lack confidence to ask questions that may be stupid.

They haven't learnt the skill of asking without asking - just checking as others may be confused - or just not caring what others think. I've found if someone can't explain something simply often means their understandings not as good as they are trying to make out and there doing some blagging.

I think younger people - often femals just lack life experience and once they get that can easily see the flaws.

Also I think there a lack of interest - there's so much to know now that many go with well they are usually relibably or I tend to agree with them so - yep. I think it seen quite a lot in US politics and the uninted messaging on the left in other places.

I walked past a rally last weekend in city not to be LGBTQ+ friendly near Uni ca,pus and the speaker with US accent was going on only reason there was issue with transwomen in women space was fear of men - I said to DH yep well a subset you can't ID and only from their behavior often to late the murders and rapists and other sexual predators most of who are men - DH agreed with me and then american young woman went on it becuase these so call feminists are part of the patriarchy they are upholding it with this ruling - wtf - we left the area but I think the logic just corkscrewy because it's more cult/religion than logic - at least for some.

Thank you! Yes, most of us academics don’t believe any of it but we can’t (and in some cases have been explicitly told by our managers not to) say anything. My experience of it is that students started bringing this up themselves during and after the Covid lockdowns, and that it came originally from US-dominated online youth culture on Tumblr, Discord etc.

There are definitely a few academics (not the majority, the minority in my experience) who do go along with it, for whatever reason (as I outlined in my post above); but they mostly don’t really actually believe in it and just go along with it to virtue-signal and look modish to the students. There are lots of stealth-GC academics in universities (even those who are parents of gendery kids). The most vocal pro-genderwoo ones in my university are young childless women and gay men who want to look down with what the undergrads think these days.

I agree that we're being a bit scatter-gun about 'academics', HarpSnail. Obviously lots of individual academics are both intelligent, knowledgeable and wise.
Some areas of study seem to encourage the kind of environment in which genderwoo can flourish. Dare I say Cultural Studies?

Half of the population is of below average intelligence.

(I've googled to see if this means mean or median but I can't quite tell. Which probably illustrates the point. 😁)