Yes, especially when we couple it with the fact that smart people have not just more ability, but usually also stronger incentives to optimize their views for signaling value. The smarter you are, the greater is the relative contribution of the signaling value of your views and opinions to your overall status likely to be. On the very top of this scale are people whose primary identity in life is that of prestigious intellectuals. (Unsurprisingly, the views of such people tend to be extremely uniform and confined to a very narrow range of variation.)

One puzzle here however is that the level of status-driven intellectual uniformity has varied a lot historically. In the Western world it was certainly far lower, say, a 100 or 150 years ago than today. Reading books from that period, it's clear that a lot of what people said and wrote was driven by signaling rather than matter-of-fact thinking, but the ratio was nothing like the overwhelming preponderance of the former that we see nowadays. It seems like back then, intellectual status-signaling was somehow successfully channeled outside of the main subjects of intellectual disputes, leaving enough room for an honest no-nonsense debate, which is practically nonexistent today in respectable venues outside of hard sciences and technical subjects.

I have only some vague and speculative hypotheses about the possible explanations for these historical differences, though.

This would make for a very interesting topic of discussion, in a different context I came to a similar surprising observation. But I think more specific examples, data and perhaps a few citations might prove vital for this. Potentially problematic because the 19th and 20th century are not without cause sometimes referred to in my corner of the world as "half passed history" since their interpretation carries direct political and ideological implications for the present day.

I need to think about whether to write down my reply here or PM you regarding this, just wanted to first make this public though, so anyone else interested and willing to risk it has a chance to jump in. :)