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Instead of bemoaning his specific and clumsy example, take the gift of this moment and don’t forget that he’s smart, confident, and usually wrong or completely ignorant outside of his own narrow field.

Don’t let the Gell-Mann Amnesia take you.

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I think logic is squarely in his field, and even with simple logic, proposing the importance of second order effects on people who are dying is not tenable. Personally, knowing that he is indeed one of the smartest people around, and definitely much smarter than me, I cannot but be a bit worried that going with this example indicates traces of panic in the face of a shifting world. He’s smart but human, and maybe these weaknesses are not to bemoan but to celebrate in our current context.

One of life’s hardest lessons is that raw intelligence isn’t a superpower, it isn’t a substitute for actually knowing about the topic. The smartest person alive talking about a subject they don’t understand the details of is no better than a confident idiot.

Speaking for myself n I’ll respect his intelligence more when he discovers his limits and learns to act with humility outside of his narrow field.

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