You may be right about the "smart" people over there. But, smart people can do horrifyingly stupid and destructive things. Consider the history of the Dreyfus Affair, during which most of the smartest people in France turned (some viciously) against an innocent man.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreyfus_affair

In all fairness, I don't think Dreyfus had sound ideas about the presence or absence of copper mineralization in Arizona, but that doesn't seem to have justified the acrimony he received.