re: #471 stuiec

I think you need to recognize that just as expertise in one field doesn’t convey expertise in all fields, outright nuttiness in one field doesn’t negate expertise in all other fields.

William Shockley deserves to be remembered and hailed as the co-inventor of the transistor, one of the fundamental transformational technologies of our age and one of the necessary underpinnings of the Internet. He also deserves to be remembered and reviled as a eugenicist nut — but the latter doesn’t invalidate the former.

Rene Magritte remains one of my favorite artists, even though he was a Fascist before the Second World War.

If a kook is a genuine expert in a particular field, he should be given credibility in that field and that field alone. We have plenty of examples of this in entertainment: Sean Penn may be politically infantile and deranged, but he’s still a good actor.

I’m not buying that logic. It’s like saying the Mohammed Atta really was fun at parties and a fabulous personality….it’s just that killing of thousands of innocent people……