Why Smart People Do Stupid Things

I'm sure this will get down-voted mightily, but I believe there is a lot more to life than than rationality.

For example, human thought has a strong emotional component. At least mine does, and I believe it's true for everyone else (except maybe for psychotics). For a long time I believed this emotional part shouldn't affect my decisions and behavior, but as I've gotten older I think this is not correct. I think logic and rationality are great tools, but they certainly shouldn't be the only tools in the kit, so to speak.

I'm not saying that decisions should be entirely based on emotion, or anything else. I'm not saying that people should be stupid in how they approach life's problems, either. I am saying that knowing when to use logic and rationality sometimes takes a lot of skill and finesse. I also think it should be the "default option" for most problems, but not all of them.

I think the article puts in well with this: "In other words, you can be intelligent without being rational. And you can be a rational thinker without being especially intelligent."