I think these comments highlight to me how difficult it is to reason and talk about intelligence.
Intelligence and stupidity suffer from fundamental attribution error.
The main thing I learned from reflecting on my error is that making any sweeping conclusions about people is foolhardy.
So yes, engineers can be idiots, test pilots can be idiots, smart people can decide to do dangerous things on purpose, idiots can do dangerous things on purpose, idiots can do dangerous things on accident, so on to absurdity.
Putting people in buckets based on some observed criteria is rarely advisable; everyone's story is different.
Intelligence and stupidity suffer from fundamental attribution error.
The main thing I learned from reflecting on my error is that making any sweeping conclusions about people is foolhardy.
So yes, engineers can be idiots, test pilots can be idiots, smart people can decide to do dangerous things on purpose, idiots can do dangerous things on purpose, idiots can do dangerous things on accident, so on to absurdity.
Putting people in buckets based on some observed criteria is rarely advisable; everyone's story is different.