This is less useful than it sounds. Disappointingly, there are not too many ideas that are believed solely by stupid people. As mentioned before, even creationism can muster a list of Ph.Ds who support it. When I was much younger, I was once quite impressed to hear that there were creationist Ph.Ds with a long list of scientific accomplishments in various fields. Since then, I learned about compartmentalization.
I don’t think compartmentalization completely explains this phenomenon. I remember a usenet or Straight Dope debate from a decade and change back where a PHD specialized in molecular biology strongly and honestly expressed an argument for the young-earth creationist theory (and no, she she was not an evangelical christian, she was Jewish). Now molecular biologists wouldn’t have to be experts in genetics and evolution per-se—though they’ve certainly studied the basics—but they do see all kinds of real world data every day that supports the idea that evolution has taken place over a very long period of time—specifically in examples of vestigial structures across basically all kingdoms and phyla.
There is no conclusion I could take from all this except that she was incompetent as a molecular biologist. If you can compartmentalize that much it would seem you lack something—not pure intelligence—but some capacity for abstract thought that would seem necessary to do something as basic as devise a series of experiments to test a new hypothesis.
I don’t think compartmentalization completely explains this phenomenon. I remember a usenet or Straight Dope debate from a decade and change back where a PHD specialized in molecular biology strongly and honestly expressed an argument for the young-earth creationist theory (and no, she she was not an evangelical christian, she was Jewish). Now molecular biologists wouldn’t have to be experts in genetics and evolution per-se—though they’ve certainly studied the basics—but they do see all kinds of real world data every day that supports the idea that evolution has taken place over a very long period of time—specifically in examples of vestigial structures across basically all kingdoms and phyla.
There is no conclusion I could take from all this except that she was incompetent as a molecular biologist. If you can compartmentalize that much it would seem you lack something—not pure intelligence—but some capacity for abstract thought that would seem necessary to do something as basic as devise a series of experiments to test a new hypothesis.