It DOES have pertinence to our situation today. It’s why smart people can believe the twaddle that is “global warming” or think that despite the repeated failure of socialism wherever it has been tried, it will work if only the right people are put in charge. It’s the failure to STOP and think before making a decision, the use of a “feeling” about an answer instead of actually checking the actual facts or doing the calculations yourself (hockey stick, anyone?), and the failure to use REAL scientific method to examine any question and be equally willing to toss out cherished, long held beliefs, as well as to accept the hard to swallow strange ideas that challenge them when the newly discovered FACTS require you to do so, and to not keep sweeping either under the rug!
Intellectual laziness harnessed in the service of intellectual arrogance, are a dangerous combination.