Intelligence isn't some unknowable quantity. We don't have to gather all the intelligent people together and ask them about all the things that make us anxious.
Everyone is intelligent about something in their sphere. Everyone knows something.
This is why I extremely don't care what a linguist says about climate or what an astrophysicist says about opera. And I really really don't care where they went to school or where they teach.
It's just so weirdly insecure to have to hunt down the smartest person you can find who also happens to share a similar viewpoint to your own. That's not a proof text. That's playground "uncle who works at Nintendo" discourse.