Why did they write "这是人的智慧" here? This text is about 'big data'. 

Why did they write "这是人的智慧"? What does that mean here? How does it fit into this context?

It seems to mean something like 'this is common knowledge' or 'everyone knows that'. What does it really mean here?

什么是大数据？枯燥的名词解释会让“科盲”们更加摸不着头脑，有学者以通俗的例子这样告诉我们，“每个人乘飞机时，都是自己选择航线，这是人的智慧，当人们的选择结果反映到具体的航程中来，就会有大量的数据被记录下来。我们根据这些原始的、堆积如山的记录梳理出的航程设计方案，将是最卓越的。这就是大数据的方法。“
It looks like some of this comes from an August 2014 news story that Xinhua ran about big data, but I believe that there is probably an English original somewhere behind this. Perhaps 人的智慧 was an (odd) attempt to translate "human intelligence" (as opposed to artificial inteligence). 

最卓越 is also odd, the August 2014 Xinhua story had a very similar sentence that used 最优 "optimal".

“科盲”们 is even odder, an attempt to translate "science illiterates." The Xinhua story used 技术盲, not quite as odd, since it doesn't try to make it plural. A lot of very perplexing Chinese originates from bad translations of English. Perhaps others will feel that none of this is very odd, though. This is how languages change.