I see this all the time. I was trying to explain recently to someone how a person can be highly intelligent and a fool at the same time. It is as if the brain takes skills from one area to build them up in another. Many intelligent people lack social understanding, and some are extremely cut off and cruel in their view of the wider population. Some intellectuals are highly totalitarian in their thinking.
Academia itself also functions as a kind of subculture, with its own customs, traditions and quirks. I'm not just thinking of the strange fraternities, processions and whatnot in old universities, but the way academic papers are worded or even titled.
While I've seen zillions of STEM folks fail to comprehend that class solidarity or exploitation/insecurity of working for corporations aren't necessarily in most people's best interests, but I'd trust a climate scientist to know more about climate science or a software engineer to understand software craftsmanship more than random people outside their particular field. Meanwhile, antivaxx and raw milk Dunning-Kruger people race towards Darwin awards because they're "so much smarter than the 'experts'". Anti-intellectualism is a deeply traditional American-ism that negates the contributions of a core of essential, highly-productive intellectualism (the history of dozens of colleges in the Boston metro, yo) that is often selectively ignored.
nephihaha · · focus · HN ↗
Academia itself also functions as a kind of subculture, with its own customs, traditions and quirks. I'm not just thinking of the strange fraternities, processions and whatnot in old universities, but the way academic papers are worded or even titled.
burnt-resistor · · focus · HN ↗