Fischer: Brilliant & Idiotic

Writing for the Skeptical Inquirer, Martin Gardner counts chess genius Bobby Fischer among those whom he considers both "extremely intelligent" as well as being "simple minded". Take, for example, Isaac Newton and A. C. Doyle. The former, being a Christian, apparently tried to calculate the exact date of the Second Coming; while the latter, wait for this, believed in fairies!

Martin Gardner:

Aside from chess, Fischer came close to being a moron. I once thought his refusal to play chess on Saturday was because he was Jewish. No, it was because he had become a convert to the Worldwide Church of God, a strange sect founded by former Seventh-day Adventist Herbert W. Armstrong. Like the Adventists, Armstrong believed that Saturday is still the God-appointed Sabbath. In 1972 Bobby gave $61,000 to Armstrong, part of the prize money he had won by defeating Spassky.

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