I'm not claiming that I know anything about other people's lives. In fact I might go so far as to say that when it comes to understanding the world as a whole t

I'm not claiming that I know anything about other people's lives. In fact I might go so far as to say that when it comes to understanding the world as a whole trying to do so by enumerating the personal experiences of all the members of the human race might not be the best way to do it. Our brains create the world for us, they tell us things and give us imperatives that even the smartest of us often don't realize. Most importantly the lie to us, all of us. Reality is not a matter of experience, when an intellectual makes a statement from his experience he is just as likely to be wrong as anyone else. What tends to set some intellectuals apart is that the occasionally apply data to a situation. I will grant you that because they do this on occasion they are far (infinitely some might argue) more likely to think that explantations that actually come from their limited (fallible) experience come from data.