The Five Year Old Test

Another common failure mode of smart people is to believe that being contrarian is a sign of being smart. As a result they will associate "consensus opinions" with "doing as you're told" or "being a sheep" and will instinctively recoil away from those consensus opinions, even when the consensus is obviously right.

For example, the many very smart people who thought that they could use nicotine as a stimulant without getting addicted. Or the people who think that if a five year old can identify that something is bad, it must actually be good.