When (potentially) great minds go wrong

[Faith No More]

I agree with Chuck. It's not so much they're not clever, it's that the necessity to grasp onto a certain worldview is greater than their desire to objectively understand reality. Some people desire so much for there to be a higher purpose to life they will convince themselves of anything, regardless of the facts presented. The fact that life is a series of jumbled, random circumstances, and after they die, their existence will be nothing but a unnoticed footnote in the book of the human race, is too much for some people to face.