I usually consider Ben Carson as a modern and well known example.

I had no idea Ben Carson was a vaccine skeptic.

To be fair, he's only a neurosurgeon, so I'm sure we all know better than him about this.

To clarify, he's only a pediatric neurosurgeon who pioneered procedures previously pondered as preposterous. This is actually something he's a recognized expert on, but because he holds a different opinion than you, he must be wrong.

He's not even antivax, he just thinks that newborns shouldn't receive a full round of shots immediately after birth, but that they should be spaced out. What an idiotic, uninformed individual.

I don't think Carson's anti-vax.

I think he's being used as an example of someone who can be brilliant in one specialty while demonstrating /u/magashna's "doorknob level intelligence" in other fields like Egyptian archeology.

Precisely. I remember hearing him in his debates years ago and the jokes about "well it's not like he's a brain surgeon...what!?"

Ben Carson's views on pediatric vaccines might or might not be well founded but his views on Egyptology certainly proves the point well that expertise in one area doesn't prevent one from being very poorly informed in another.

>pediatric neurosurgeon who pioneered procedures previously pondered as preposterous

"Practitioner" would have made a beautiful 7x combo

Ooh, nice. Thanks!