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thick as mince in all other areas other than physics.
I wonder if these people are just a bit thick, eccentric, or if they are smart enough to know that they are basically protected and untouchable due to having valuable skills that are in such demand so there is literally no benefit to them in engaging with 'lower level life' and attaining actual life skills.
tl;dr someone has to clean the toilet but it's not going to be them
Howard-
Never thought it was that cynical. But maybe it is.
IME it mostly seems to be a lack of thought towards things outside their niche area. Sometimes they find it boring so why amalgamate it into your knowledge bank?
I know "common sense" isn't popular here, but it always seems to be that which is missing. Just those things that you intuitively pick up on or can see.
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I wonder if these people are just a bit thick, eccentric, or if they are smart enough to know that they are basically protected and untouchable due to having valuable skills that are in such demand so there is literally no benefit to them in engaging with 'lower level life' and attaining actual life skills.
Failing to pick up basic life skills isn't the preserve of the super-intelligent. There may be a degree of obsessive interest in theoretical matters that limits experience of real-life interactions and tasks (like a football prodigy having no idea how to do anything but play football, because he's always been nurtured to do only that). Alternatively it could just be common-or-garden cluelessness as seen in a small percentage of people across all demographics, which is just thrown into sharp relief by their obvious intelligence in a specific area.
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It's not uncommon for people to be very capable within their niche and yet total Dunning-Kruger "How hard can it be?" in any other context. The basic DunningKruger problem is a lack of any skill at meta-cognition (or any awareness that it's even a thing), but I think there are probably multiple thresholds there, so somebody might be able to apply some abstract thinking up to a point and then totally fail beyond it and somehow not be able to see there's a problem.
Personality traits can be barriers as well, I think. My wee brother scored well in IQ tests and similar when a kid, but is fundamentally lazy and entitled. In particular, he very early on went beyond intellectual laziness to being stonkingly anti-intellectual. Family get-togethers are embarrassing, because he debates like a mentally subnormal schoolyard bully and has no idea how stupid and crass he appears (there's an empathy fail there, as well). In his niche (RAF pilot), that kind of attitude is the norm, so he's not challenged.
hugo7
ffm
itsbruce
I have a relative like that. World reknowned physicist with a thirty year career at Nasa and US DoD, thick as mince in all other areas other than physics.