Here's an anecdote.

When my grandfather found out his leukemia was back, he tried some home diet remedies that he read about online. Next thing we knew, his leukemia was labeled as chronic lymphocytic leukemia, and he received a pancreatic cancer diagnosis as well. He was devastated. He doubled down on the diet, and found religion, and started looking into Eastern Medicine. Pretty soon he was in hospice on his death bed.

This is a man who had two PHD's, ran the Iditarod, worked for U Penn and Virginia Tech, and helped lead the initial dialogs against Monsanto. He was a brilliant man, who should have known better.

But he died, and his doctors told us his diet and "experimental" treatments are what killed him.

That doesn't make him stupid. The fact that "he kept doing the dumb thing over an extended period of time, when a person of even average intelligence would have deferred to the actual experts" doesn't make him stupid, it makes him human.

Have you ever seen the desperation that people fall into when they want to heal? It becomes part of their identity. It's part of what drives them. It's not stupid to want to survive. Mistakes may be made, your actions may even accelerate your death. But there is nothing stupid about the emotional break that can drive someone to these decisions.

Another phrase most people don't understand is "deperate times call for desperate measures".