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I dunno. I just don't buy it. The staggering complexity of human behavior, market forces, etc. seems such an obvious, and concrete even, issue that you'd have to be suffering from pathological delusions to be a successful physicist and ignore it. Although, if my understanding is correct, these delusions may be exactly what you're imputing to Nobel prize winners.

I recognize what you're saying as a possibility. However, I also have a suspicion that those who succeed in intellectual endeavors have a great awareness of what they do not know. It's expedient in learning and in problem solving; without having skill in it, it seems unlikely that you'd make much progress in the first place. If there's any truth to this, it's inconceivable to me that someone skilled in locating what they do not know, would make the unforgivable blunder of thinking they know enough about an overly complex system to control it.

I think imposing artificial limits on the capabilities of 'smart people' is a common mistake. If your comments are supposed to be intelligent, why would an intelligent person be less likely to arrive at something similar? You find your suggestions to embody a correct solution, but for some reason it is out of reach to those exceeding a particular IQ or level of education? Maybe this comes from fearing people having education without intelligence; but as long as we are actually speaking about someone who is intelligent -- not just educated -- I think we should give 'em a chance.

It sounds to me like the claim is: people who are smart think they know more than they do. If anything, I think the smarter you are, the more likely you are to realize exactly what you don't know.

Might be similar to the standing between two mirrors effect.