A great example would be Arthur Conan Doyle. When it came to Sherlock Holmes, he was a brilliant writer but failed when he tried anything else, including his belief in spiritualism and the supernatural.
Why should he have succeeded at anything else? You don’t need “high status stupidity” to explain his failures. Regression toward the mean would suffice, just like with “one hit wonders” in music.
A great example would be Arthur Conan Doyle. When it came to Sherlock Holmes, he was a brilliant writer but failed when he tried anything else, including his belief in spiritualism and the supernatural.
Why should he have succeeded at anything else? You don’t need “high status stupidity” to explain his failures. Regression toward the mean would suffice, just like with “one hit wonders” in music.
If we’re going to allow examples from the arts we can also list the Wachowski siblings and George Lucas.
ETA : Actually, now I think both of those were due to the fact that successful writers/directors/etc are given less oversight by financiers.
Yet less oversight still might lead them to behave less intelligently. Another item for the list?