[MichaelZuo]

The truly intelligent, or 'very smart', people reliably detect when they are falling for post hoc rationalizations.

At least in my experience.

Most other people make claims or may appear to be but in practice do not demonstrate it on a broad basis, as in your example.

Maybe a different terminology is needed to describe the latter case, 'selectively smart'?

[js2]

You're making a No True Scotsman argument here, no?

[MichaelZuo]

I don't see it? You will need to elaborate.

[js2]

This entire subthread seems to be an argument over the definition of "intelligent". In no dictionary definition that I can find does it exclude people who join cults. Yet that seems to be the argument being made here.

From the Wikipedia:

> No True Scotsman, or appeal to purity, is an informal fallacy in which one attempts to protect their generalized statement from a falsifying counterexample by excluding the counterexample improperly.

So I think it's a No True Scotsman argument to make to say "well, if they joined a cult, they must not have been intelligent in the first place."

But now I suppose we're arguing over the definition of the No True Scotsman fallacy and that's just a bit too meta for me on a rainy Sunday afternoon, so I'm going to go walk my dog. :-)

[MichaelZuo]

There clearly exist people who can see their own post hoc rationalizations?

It's not some abstract speculation. Even HN comments often demonstrate it one way or the other.