When extremely brilliant people are stupid, they tend to be brilliantly stupid.

It is said that you can fool some of the people some of the time; all of the people some of the time; but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time. Well, there is an exception to that adage. When extremely brilliant people, especially leaders and other authorities, espouse a brilliantly stupid proposal or theory that effects entire populations or intellectual disciplines, they can and often do fool all of the people all of the time. Well, at least for a long, long time.

People simply do not or cannot look for contrary evidence or alternatives and cannot see when shown. If they do see, they explain it as an exception or somehow assimilate to their existing knowledge base.

No one wants to admit that they were fooled.