Yes, I think I dropped the ball there. It would have read the same without it. And should it have been “among”, anyway? Hey, I’m working on it - it’s been a long, long time since I studied grammar.
Had to go look it up. “Amongst” is the British form of the preposition “among”. Still, my use of it was superfluous - I could have just said “by intelligent people”, or to be more exact, educated people.