"I have come to find out what it's like to be dumb."

This has got to be a new record for me. I made it as far as "I’m a smart guy." and closed the tab. I understand people are deliberately controversial to attract readership, but seriously...

I more wrote it as a comment in the form of "if you read this article with no previous experience with, or knowledge of, the mental effects of Lyme disease; and now think you do know something about those effects; please take this complementary wet blanket." :)

I've had a similar experience due to coming down with a condition called occipital neuralgia (essentially compressed and/or damaged nerves in the scalp). I was in a car wreck several years ago, and it has been a nightmare ever since.

The main symptom for me is the continual feeling of pressure in the back of the head, and a bit of tenderness over the greater occipital nerves. I can still program somewhat effectively, but my short term memory is horrible, and quick-thinking is down the tubes. It's fairly similar to a mild/moderate hangover.

I would not say that I am dumb or truly have the same experience as someone of low IQ, but the whole experience has instilled a bit of resentment towards the Silicon Valley mindset that every dev must be a quick-thinking, 10x wiz kid. I am not an A-player at this point, but by putting in a few extra hours a week I can keep up with the devs on my team, and I try to make sure my output is somewhat on par.

Fortunately, botox has made a tremendous impact (takes pressure off the nerves), and I'm getting surgery soon so fingers crossed I can make a solid recovery.

You are, in your very definition, stating that it fails for more than a handful of intelligent people ("if you set aside the atypical cases of candidates who are esteemed scholars, scientists and technologists, who are nevertheless fervently religious, of whom we can be sure there are more than a handful"). These 'intelligent people' of whom there are 'more than a handful' will also almost certainly disagree with your definition of intelligence.

I might go out on a limb at this point and suggest that defining religious people as stupid is not particularly helpful, even operating from your own assumptions as stated in your own definition. Some intelligent people might happen to disagree with your assumptions as well, but I'll leave that argument as well outside the normally appreciated scope of HN discussion.

I will try to not appear as though I am convinced that these differences between "instrumental rationality" and intelligence - in the context of the current discussion - are specious.

Actually I find your delineation, quite satisfying an explanation.

However it begs one to ask what good is an impoverished measure of intelligence (IQ) that only computes your ability to recognize and exploit novel patterns, generalized across different domains (word problems, pictures, music), under time pressure if it doesn't so much as envelope the simple ability of a person to observe and verify that certain beliefs he or she holds subscribes to aren't causally attached to the rest of his or her experience

Isn't that simple enough a mental exercise?

Indeed, isn't that also a similarly intelligent exercise that constitutes the ability to recognize consistent patterns of denials and refusals in one's unremitting adherence to a religious faith?

What good is to ascribe intelligence (as in high IQ) to a person if the measure of intelligence is so narrowly defined?

I am left wanting for an explanation as to why the large majority of experts would concoct such an useless gauge of intelligence.

For the sake of pedagogy, instrumental rationality, I am certain, is a very fulfilling piece of terminology. I am also quite certain it is composed of attributes that are not necessarily equivalent to those of intelligence.

However if instrumental rationality is a skill than is not bestowed to you at birth unlike intelligence (from what I derive from your You can't learn to be more intelligent line) then what - in its thinnest scope - does intelligence constitute ?

Although I am not all that perturbed by it, this jargon of instrumental rationality and its neat separation from intelligence seems to have been contrived by theologians in a divinity school somewhere so as to not hurt the sentiments of the religious devotees.

I wouldn't be one bit surprised if also the various contrivances of intelligence - spatial, kinesthetic, rhythmic, linguistic, naturalistic, existential, mathematical, intrapersonal and interpersonal - are also more inventions of convenience than clearly circumscribed goods or measurable quantities.