Subtitle: How Intelligence is sometimes its own worst enemy.
Rod Martin, Jr. claims to be an expert on the Dumb Genius syndrome, having suffered this malady on numerous occasions. This, he says, made him uncomfortably aware of the symptoms of this syndrome in all his fields of interest—from history, myth and legend, to climate science, geology, mathematics and education. This syndrome has even corrupted religion and spirituality.
The syndrome starts with knowledge and a cocky sense of sedentary certainty that blinds the individual from seeing evidence which would otherwise show them to be wrong.
The book gives over 30 examples—from the bizarre to the obscene—showing how intelligence can sometimes be its own worst enemy.
This includes such personalities as Stephen Hawking, Michael Shermer, Paul Kurtz, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., President Biden, President Obama, President Bush, Jr., Nancy Pelosi, Origen of Alexandria, Gregory of Nyssa, Michael Mann, Phil Jones, Lord Christopher Monckton, David Ray Griffin, Aristotle, Plato, J. Robert Oppenheimer, and even the fictional villain, Lex Luthor.
The Dumb Genius syndrome is a very real threat to an individual's Effective Intelligence, but there is a simple cure. Delivering that cure is made difficult by the ego that holds the Dumb Genius syndrome in place.
Throughout history, the Dumb Genius syndrome can be found destroying institutions, even hobbling one entire discipline for over a millennium. The Dumb Genius can sound profoundly wise to the naive and gullible. To those with a modicum of good critical thinking, the Dumb Genius can sound immature and sloppy in their conclusions.
The cure is always simple, but only rarely easy. Like a beast fighting for its very survival, the Dumb Genius syndrome does not go quietly into the long night of oblivion. But it does not need to be this way. The medicine to cure this syndrome must be applied for the remainder of an individual's life, but it provides immense relief to the individual's inherent intelligence.
