I have found that the smarter the person, the easier it is to fall into the trap of asserting something confidently without actually thinking through the detail

I have found that the smarter the person, the easier it is to fall into the trap of asserting something confidently without actually thinking through the details. Our brains are really good at abstracting out detail and so there can be a whole tree of things to consider that our brain simplifies into a ready made answer. When you are really bright, you are used to being right (or at least being able to argue the point so well that other people concede the argument). With that confidence, it's easy to overlook pretty massive gaps. I once worked with a brilliant physicist. One day he went off on a holiday and when he came back I asked him how it went. "Terrible", he said. It turned out that his plan was to drive from Winnipeg (which is right smack in the middle of Canada) to Vancouver (on the west coast) in a day. Then he was going to drive down the coast to Los Angeles the next day, do some sight seeing and find a hotel. Then we was going to drive to Las Vegas the next day, and gamble for the rest of the day. Finally he was going to drive back to Winnipeg the next day. He made it from Winnipeg to Moose Jaw before he gave up. "When I looked at the map of North America in my map book, it was the same size as the map of Germany, so I thought they were the same size in real life", was the excuse.