[biswaroop]

This may be off-topic, but it's incredible how Brian Josephson went off the rails with his paranormal quantum theories.

A fascinating read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_disease

The list is full of people who are obviously 'smart' in some way, but somehow also incredibly full of bad ideas. It's possible that being insightful also requires you to have bad ideas as well - as if they're fountains of ideas, good and bad.

Crucially though, these Nobel Laureates possess a lack of critical thinking to filter out the bad ideas (that are often outside their field of expertise). They're definitely not unique among scientists.

[jacquesm]

I think this happens for the same reason they win their Nobel in the first place: to just go wherever their curiosity takes them, without having a pre-conceived notion about whether that is good or bad. If you open fifty thousand ugly oysters you're sure to find some gems, maybe even a priceless one. But you're also going to find a lot of junk. So you are likely on to something there, and the lack of a filter is definitely an issue.

You see this in other fields as well: at some point having an opinion is about name recognition. If you are some unknown person and you have a bullshit opinion about something the world will ignore you. But if you're a Nobel prize winner, and actor or media personality, a well known athlete, a business person or a venture capitalist with a lot of money then people will pay attention to what you say and will treat it with both more weight than they would otherwise and they will burn you down far worse than would ever happen compared to an unknown person.

The Dutch have a proverb about this (we have proverbs for everything, so this should be no surprise), that roughly translates as 'tall trees catch a lot of wind'.

[rramadass]

>I think this happens for the same reason they win their Nobel in the first place

You are absolutely right. As they say There is a Thin Line Between Genius and Insanity. The very intensity of their out-of-the-box thinking which got them the Nobel prize in the first place is also what makes them prone to go off in many other directions without regard to Social Standing, Ethics and Morality.

IMO, this is not a fault but Genius applied to the wrong beliefs/ends which does not invalidate any of their other achievements. I will take the Genius with all their faults over the Common Average any-day.

PS: Relevant two-part article - https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-hidden-habits-ge...

[optimalsolver]

> Examples Of Otherwise Good Scientists Who Were Consumed By Their Pet Theories Despite Weak/Contradictory Evidence?

https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/aoh607/exam...

[svachalek]

Interesting, I had not heard of that. For an older example, Isaac Newton spent most of his life researching alchemy.