My grandfather proclaimed that Miss of the Czech Republic must be smart. In his view, it was command of foreign languages (of course, learning a foreign language means you never master it just like your native tongue), some superficial general knowledge, and some ability to respond to more difficult questions. Is that an educated person?
While this is absurd, we have to leave it to what really means being an educated person. Is being educated about knowing Greek gods, having a high IQ without real abilities, knowing which river flows where, learning fairy-tale versions of history, or reading tons of fiction?
The core knowledge
We are just animals and everything we do (from watching movies, chasing sexual partners, putting up makeup, chatting, listening to music, amassing scarce resources) is a product of evolution.
We are here by absolute randomness (don’t confuse that natural selection is random). Evolutionary pathways have led us to this reality.
There is no theistic or deistic god, no purpose to life or society, and no self. We don’t and can’t possess free will.
Evolutionary psychology as a must-know
We want to live in the center of the cities as a protection from predators. People are selfish, seeking a higher social status, and live in complex hierarchies with the submissive-dominant dichotomy we inherited from simians. We have mate selection, music likely evolved as a social bonding tool, enhancing group cohesion, emotional communication, and mate attraction in early human communities.
As higher primates, we help people based on percentage of genes sharing with them. Females are selective whether it comes to mating as they need the right sexual partner while males mate with every woman because it doesn’t mean they have to invest anything in her.
People are xenophobic because it serves as a protection from outsiders and disqualifies people who are different from the mating process.
Teenagers often pursue short-term mating strategies driven by experimentation and peer status, while adults typically shift toward long-term strategies focused on stability, resource sharing, and parental investment.
Every educated person must know what families run the USA
You have no clue whom the Rockefellers, Astors, Morgans or even Rothschilds are? You are not an educated person. No clue about influence of J. P. Morgan or Goldman Sachs? Then you can barely understand what politics is.
You must know that you are going nowhere as a politician without such groups behind your back. Political process too slow or clogged? They do it on purpose and a politician must gain political capital to do anything.
Also, not knowing that secret services are interconnected with Big Banks and super-rich families is a blind spot.
The whole Western world is created by the system of mutually interconnected banks deeply detrimental to the Global South.
Also, secret societies shouldn’t be downplayed and their existence should be knowledge of an educated person.
Some humanities
Analytic philosophy (sorry for the lovers of the continental school, I don’t think you should be even aware of it) – epistemology, ontology, philosophy of science, morality, free will
Linguistics – language acquisition, language evolution, and the nature of linguistic universals
Economy – basics
Psychology – clinical and cognitive psychology (psychometrics – the “g factor” concept)
Psychiatry – an elementary understanding of this discipline shows how the human mind can be twisted
Educated person: Hard sciences? Even on popular science-level
Physics includes mechanics, electromagnetism, thermodynamics, quantum physics, and relativity. Mechanics studies motion, forces, and energy, explaining why objects move or fall. Electromagnetism focuses on electricity and magnetism, covering power lines and magnets. Thermodynamics studies heat and energy transfer, explaining engines and melting ice. Quantum physics deals with tiny particles behaving unpredictably, affecting computers and lasers. Relativity studies space, time, and gravity, helping to understand black holes and GPS systems.
Chemistry includes organic, inorganic, physical, analytical, and biochemistry. Organic chemistry studies carbon-based compounds like fuels, plastics, and medicines. Inorganic chemistry focuses on metals, minerals, and non-carbon substances like salts and acids. Physical chemistry connects chemistry with physics, explaining energy changes in reactions. Analytical chemistry identifies substances, important in drug testing and food safety. Biochemistry studies chemicals inside living things, explaining digestion and disease resistance.
Astronomy includes planetary science, astrophysics, and cosmology. Planetary science studies planets and their atmospheres. Astrophysics explains how stars, black holes, and galaxies work. Cosmology explores the universe’s origin and future. Earth sciences include geology, meteorology, oceanography, and environmental science. Geology studies rocks, earthquakes, and Earth’s changes. Meteorology predicts storms and climate patterns. Oceanography explores the sea and marine life. Environmental science studies pollution and conservation.
Evolutionary biology as a necessity
Biology relies on genetics and evolutionary biology. Genetics explains how DNA and mutations shape traits passed from parents to offspring. Evolutionary biology describes how species change over time through natural selection, genetic drift, genetic draft, speciation, and phylogenetics. Natural selection ensures that traits improving survival and reproduction become more common, while harmful traits disappear. Genetic drift, a random process, changes the frequency of traits by chance, especially in small populations. Genetic draft, influenced by linked genes, allows neutral traits to spread when they are inherited alongside beneficial ones.
Speciation occurs when populations become isolated and evolve separately, eventually forming distinct species. This can result from physical barriers, like mountains or oceans, or ecological differences that prevent interbreeding. Phylogenetics reconstructs evolutionary relationships by comparing DNA and physical traits, mapping connections between species and their common ancestors. It helps scientists understand how species diverged and how traits evolved over millions of years.
Human evolution, traced through fossils and genetics, shows how early humans developed larger brains, walked upright, and adapted biologically and culturally. Evolution explains why humans share most of their DNA with other primates and how natural selection shaped intelligence, social behavior, and resistance to diseases. Even today, evolution continues as human populations adapt to new environments, diets, and diseases. Evolutionary biology is necessary to understand the diversity of life and how species, including humans, continue to change.
The Queen of sciences: Mathematics
Mathematics is the foundation of all hard sciences because it provides the precise language and tools needed to describe, measure, and predict natural phenomena. It includes arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, statistics, and mathematical physics. Arithmetic deals with basic operations like addition and multiplication, which form the basis for all calculations. As concepts become more advanced, algebra introduces variables and equations, allowing scientists to express relationships between different quantities. Meanwhile, geometry studies shapes, distances, and spatial relationships, which are crucial for fields like physics, engineering, and even astronomy.
Furthermore, calculus plays a key role in explaining change and motion. By using derivatives, scientists measure rates of change, while integrals help calculate areas and accumulations. This is especially important in physics, where motion, forces, and energy must be described with precision. In addition, statistics allows scientists to analyze data, find patterns, test hypotheses, and make predictions. Because of this, statistics is widely used in genetics, medicine, and even economics. Mathematical physics, on the other hand, applies advanced mathematical methods to physical problems, helping to develop theories in areas such as quantum mechanics, relativity, and fluid dynamics.
Mathematics is also necessary for evolutionary biology. For example, population genetics relies on equations to model how gene frequencies change over time due to natural selection, genetic drift, and mutation. Similarly, phylogenetics depends on algorithms to reconstruct evolutionary trees from DNA data, helping scientists understand how species are related. Additionally, chaos theory and probability are used to explain complex systems, including ecosystems and climate models. Without mathematics, science would lack the precision and logical structure needed to understand and predict the natural world.
Hard sciences on a popular science level
Many fields have been described where a higher IQ is often needed to understand them, even at a popular level. But I will disappoint you: a not-so-high IQ (even though you cannot do anything about it—while I am omitting future brain chips) is not an excuse.
IQ, intelligent in a broader sense or generalizable way
We have IQ which is crucial, but also talents, intelligence in a broader sense or generalizable way. We also possess specific mental strategies that lead us to some socioeconomic outcomes.
Why not everyone with a high IQ can understand the aforementioned fields, nearly everyone who can gain this knowledge has a high IQ.
If you have little information about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the Russo-Ukrainian War, and make strong judgments, you cannot be an educated person.
In this case, the correct opinion on the death penalty, state-conducted torture, politics, and seeing the world not in black-and-white make your status of an educated person.
Tons of raw power, yet not attentive to the environment
“G factor”, hate it or love it, also measures how attentive you are to the world around you. It goes everywhere: politics, seeing society and the world in its complexities, and application of theoretical science to daily practice.
Your job performance isn’t just mirrored by your IQ. In every business you go to, you must be attentive to the environment. That also makes you an educated person.
Language knowledge irrelevant? Except for English
As a native speaker, learning Chinese, Spanish, Hindi or French is really redundant.
However, if you are not a native speaker, the knowledge of the lingua franca is a must-have.
News, science, non-fiction, fiction, technology, entertainment, everywhere you go.
A theist or a deist? You must be doing something wrong
While the latter is allowable to some degree for an educated person, being a theist is rather caused by a strong religious upbringing.
No physical powers, no powers whatsoever, prayer does not work, overlapping mythologies, ex nihilo argument explained, no free will, no internal logic, God who left this earth without anything pointing out he was ever here. God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good. But why is there evil?
No evidence, no testable hypothesis, a crazy and immoral “moral system” we should be guided by. There is no soul, no me.
But what we know is that people are religious. Religion is either a by-product or an adaptation in evolutionary biology. You may feel the reality of God in thousands of emotions, but that means nothing. We are programmed to do so.
I cannot really consider a theist an educated person. In terms of deism, the world can be explained much better without God than with him.
Cognitive biases, fallacies, formal fallacies
If you are constrained by these, you can never grasp at least a bit of reality. Those cognitive dissonances destroy anything, leaving you unable to explain the world, reality, politics and everything else in a proper way.
History
Knowing prehistory, the consequences of the Roman Empire, the Middle Ages and knowing post-modern world would do. No dates, no kings, or emperors, just a logical flow of data.
Moral system
If you think this moral system is the right one, you not only cannot be an educated person, but I would be a bit rude – you cannot be mentally sane.
Not only does morality change from time and culture, but this moral system (even if we pretend every single individual shares the same) is 1 out of 1 000 000 000 at least.
My own moral system is based on creating an infinite number of consciousness with infinite joy. But let’s look at analytic philosophy moral systems:
Utilitarianism focuses on maximizing well-being and minimizing harm, judging actions by their outcomes.
Deontology emphasizes duties and rights, holding that some actions are right or wrong regardless of consequences.
Virtue ethics centers on developing good character traits and living a morally flourishing life.
Contractualism sees morality as based on principles no one could reasonably reject, stressing fairness and justification.
Moral particularism rejects fixed rules, arguing that moral judgment depends on specific situations. These systems offer different ways to reason clearly about what is right and why.
False political spectrum
The right-left political spectrum seems redundant when we clarify that this moral system is wrong. But even if it was correct, the spectrum is extremely limited. Also, while the left wing was the state ideology of communism, the richest of the super-rich pervert economics by proposing only the right-wing spectrum. Here is my proposal:
More redistribution/Less redistribution
Liberal/Conservative
Anti-consumerism/Consumerism
Tens of percent of GDP investing in science/Little investment in science
Trillions of dollars for building whole countries/Little aid
Complex grasp of what surplus value is and how to change the constellation of the whole system/Unregulated savage capitalism
Pro-eugenics/Ill society
Clientelism-free politics/Patron-client political style
Massive support of natality/Few people being born
Animal-like stories news/Statistical-mathematical educational news
Lifetime education on how to change politics/Obscurantism
Anti-corruption fight/Corrupt politics
State atheism/Believing in superstitions
Forced collaboration of all political parties on common issues/Partisan politics
Cultural changes of ordinary people for better/Conservative cultures
Vegan, vegetarian society/Mass torture-prone concentration camps
Anti global warming/Denial
Paying the smartest people to be politicians/Feeble-minded prone to manipulation politicians
Eugenically healthy people – less money for a cure, more money for medical research/Ill society with trillions paid for a cure
Eugenically healthy people – less criminals, less prisons/Society full of crime
AI-friendly society/Anti AI
Global government/Eternal nationalistic wars
Global redistribution of wealth/National redistribution
Speaking one language/Babylon
Global educational system/Poor educational system around the world
People having access to a political background/Shallow hidden politics
Right to work, right to have decent housing, right to have adequate money/Savage capitalism
Morality improvement/Nihilistic-like morality
Legalizing drugs/War on Drugs
Education system renaissance/Rigid education system
Placing the brightest minds where they belong/Commercial misuse of the smartest
Banning lobbyists (governments would find out what is really needed to do)/Corrupt politics
Medical supervision/Estimated 200,000 people die from medical malpractice annually in the US
People not functioning in capitalism socially secured/The homeless army
Educated person? Who will pass? And what is enough?
I must admit I wouldn’t pass, notably because of my detestation of exact sciences and not having such a good cognitive apparatus to learn them.
But if we are not so strict: If you know there is no God, we are animals and act like animals (scarce resources, power struggles, us/them dichotomy, xenophobia), politics is controlled by the super-rich, know some elements of evolutionary psychology, being devoid of cognitive biases, fallacies or formal fallacies, have some knowledge of analytic philosophy that makes you understand the philosophy of science, you will pass.
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