J. W. Goethe was obsessed with "Farbenlehre" [0], which is so weird that it is "not even wrong". I don't think it detracts from his intelligence. It was just his blind corner, so to say.
Intelligent people are sometimes very, very weird. Grothendieck and Gödel come to mind as well. It is not smart to die of hunger because your wife is hospitalized, every lizard knows better than that; but that is precisely how Gödel met his end.
>J. W. Goethe was obsessed with "Farbenlehre" [0], which is so weird that it is "not even wrong".
I think that's a bit harsh? Goethe's color theory is taught in every art school to this day.
Goethe and science is an interesting one. In some sense he may have been a Newton of another, separate (and in some sense orthogonal) approach towards a science of nature [0]. One that takes primarily an intuitive/integrative/phenomenological approach to the world, rather than a mathematical/analytical. Somewhat analogous to continental vs analytical philosophy (or German vs British, if you want to be reductive).
The latter showed its strength once the industrial revolution rolled around and it gave the tools to understand and design ever more impressive technology, with the Goethean approach becoming ever more fringe. And after WW1+2 the cultural sphere that nurtured it was basically done.
The example I gave what about Adams being convinced to "know better" while it was clearly not true, which is to me a clue that when it comes to his view on society and business, which already looks pretty simplistic to me, the idea that he "knew better" is more probably the result of him thinking that and managing to convince others people who also like to see themselves as smarter than others.
Intelligent people are sometimes very, very weird. Grothendieck and Gödel come to mind as well. It is not smart to die of hunger because your wife is hospitalized, every lizard knows better than that; but that is precisely how Gödel met his end.
[0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farbenlehre_(Goethe)