[BluffTHIS!]

madnak,

David doesn't dispute your main contention. He fully recognizes the difference between someone who can independantly derive and prove a theorem, and someone who can apply it, or between a theoretical physicist and an engineer who applies that theory in concrete situatons. He in fact is talking about people with those theoretical abilities and not just those without them but who are smart enough to apply same. He also makes those distinctions in poker theory regarding those who can correctly analyze the theoretical basis for why observed plays work in various situations and those who can't.

If you want to try to refute his assertions that one should follow the beliefs and probabilities of high IQ non-believers as experts much more likely to be correct, then I suggest you focus on matters of epistemic probability and his caveat that such high IQ people have to have actually thorougly studied the matter of religion, which they mostly haven't.