[mortenjorck]

That's a nice feel-good position to express, but is there any empirical evidence for it? There are plenty of very smart people (in academia) who are narcissistic, paranoid of potential rivals, and generally the opposite of cooperative and collaborative.

[zyngaro]

Narcissistic, paranoid are not traits what I call smart people. Humility on the other hand is. I guess studying and observing the universe makes people humble. The great physicians Einstein, Bohr and co of the beginning of 20 century worked together a lot for example. But anyway according the first fundamental of human stupidity there is fixed ratio of stupid poeple in any group of people. I think we can agree those you are referring to can be called stupid.

[pellucide]

There is an indian saying which translates to... A tree full of fruits stays closer to the ground than one without.

[bdamm]

It's a relief to see that raw IQ is no longer the widely accepted standard for "smart".

[hellofunk]

May not be admirable qualities, but they are often qualities of genius. The paranoia of Goedel was about as debilitating as it comes. And if you read a good Einstein biography, I think you'll discover more about him than you were expecting.

[macintux]

It might be more of a question of field. Based on my hopelessly incomplete view from the outside, in cosmology and closely-related subjects, it's impossible to work independently and accomplish much of anything. You need observations from many different sources.