I'm not sure I buy the premise. Wolfram and vos Savant are bad certainly examples.
Savant is not so much ridiculed as ignored. She may be fantastically smart, but she is nothing more than "Dear Abby" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/03...) with a gimmick. She did waste her brain power, but it hasn't really harmed her.
Wolfram, on the other hand, is not really a target of ridicule. He is mocked a bit because his claims about cellular automata are overblown (and probably false), but everyone takes him seriously. A few idiot academics may feel he wasted his talents, but that's all.
Plenty of other very smart people who have exercised significant freedom are treated quite respectably. I think the premise is wrong.
But what do I know, I'm a guy with an IQ 1 standard deviation below the mean.
Savant is not so much ridiculed as ignored. She may be fantastically smart, but she is nothing more than "Dear Abby" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/linkset/2005/03...) with a gimmick. She did waste her brain power, but it hasn't really harmed her.
Wolfram, on the other hand, is not really a target of ridicule. He is mocked a bit because his claims about cellular automata are overblown (and probably false), but everyone takes him seriously. A few idiot academics may feel he wasted his talents, but that's all.
Plenty of other very smart people who have exercised significant freedom are treated quite respectably. I think the premise is wrong.
But what do I know, I'm a guy with an IQ 1 standard deviation below the mean.