The Telegraph (U.K.) reports scientists have discovered smart people are genetically predisposed to live longer and are also taller. Smart people simply get fewer diseases.
If I had to bet I'd put my money on smart folks having fewer genetic defects, which both cause disease and pull down mental acuity. Since I've retired from the university I've read the faculty obits as they come across the campus email. Occasionally I see where a friend or acquaintance has died.
What strikes me is that so many Ph.D.s live into their 90s, perhaps as many as half! As impractical as many faculty are, stupid they're not. I suspect we benefit from a healthy, relatively low-stress lifestyle with plenty of mental stimulation.
In my more philosophical moments, I muse that faculty are this (and last) century's version of the Middle Ages' monks, with the university campus as cloister. By the time I came along academic life was no longer one of genteel poverty, as it was before World War II. However I certainly did my share of "angels dancing on the head of a pin" jesuitical reasoning in academic journals and at professional meetings ... playing the monk's role.
