Genetic Fallacy; it's not because something was born for bad reasons that the thing is bad itself. That, and the statement seems more like a hyperbolic, intellectual-hipster version of "against authority". Seeing as we know that scientists treating their trade socially and irrationally rather than epistemologically and rationally, and using "reason" the way the classic-version "rationalists" (such as Descartes) did as a way of telling the world "I'm right, you're all wrong, shut up and listen", his mistake can seem more understandable.
As an amateur writer, keeping this notion in mind, that, whatever I intended to do, the reader will interpret my work from the evidence it provides, and that, if they are morally advanced enough, than they may accurately judge me (or, technically, "the narration") as well as the characters and events, in ways I couldn't have foreseen, has taught me to be very prudent in the way I present things.
Show Don't Tell goes along the same lines; instead of telling the reader that character X is a good person or that place Y is scary, you provide them evidence from which they are free to deduce that character X is good or place Y is scray. Even then, the way you select the evidence to present may well lead them to say "the narration is trying very hard to make character X look like a good person, but in fact they're not that good, because the implications of their actions are X, Y, Z".
For example, a "no Endor Holocaust" situation; if the film hadn't shown the party at Endor, the viewer might have been in his right to understand that the planet and its inhabitants were killed in the Death Star's explosion, and judged the protagonists for it.
Or, the way "300" selects the facts that it shows, tells a lot about the values and political leanings of the writers, even though they swear and insist that they're just writing entertainment.
NOTICE — Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot. — BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR, per G.G., Chief of Ordnance. —Mark Twain, Epigraph to Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, 1885
This is my first attempt at starting a casual conversation on LW where people don't have to worry about winning or losing points, and can just relax and have social fun together.
So, Big Bang Theory. That series got me wondering. It seems to be about "geeks", and not the basement-dwelling variety either; they're highly successful and accomplished professionals, each in their own field. One of them has been an astronaut, even. And yet, everything they ever accomplish amounts to absolutely nothing in terms of social recognition or even in terms of personal happiness. And the thing is, it doesn't even get better for their "normal" counterparts, who are just as miserable and petty.
Consider, then; how would being rationalists would affect the characters on this show? The writing of the show relies a lot on laughing at people rather than with them; would rationalist characters subvert that? And how would that rationalist outlook express itself given their personalities? (After all, notice how amazingly different from each other Yudkowsky, Hanson, and Alicorn are, just to name a few; they emphasize rather different things, and take different approaches to both truth-testing and problem-solving).
Note: this discussion does not need to be about rationalism. It can be a casual, normal discussion about the series. Relax and enjoy yourselves.
But the reason I brought up that series is that its characters are excellent examples of high intelligence hampered by immense irrationality. The apex of this is represented by Dr. Sheldon Cooper, who is, essentially, a complete fundamentalist over every single thing in his life; he applies this attitude to everything, right down to people's favorite flavor of pudding: Raj is "axiomatically wrong" to prefer tapioca, because the best pudding is chocolate. Period. This attitude makes him a far, far worse scientist than he thinks, as he refuses to even consider any criticism of his methods or results.