Everyone's heard of the line ''There's a thin line between genius and madness''. The obvious import of this being that on certain occasions it becomes impossible to differentiate a genius from an insane person. I think the correct description for such instances is to use the word ''eccentric''. However, this is an euphemism and while the word is used politely we all know what it really means.

Then there's the case of idiot-savant syndrome. These people (as per wikipedia) score very low in IQ tests while exhibiting amazing brilliance in a particular skill (Rainman movie). In these instances it becomes difficult to distinguish genius from idiocy/foolishness.

From the above we come to the startling (to me at least) conclusion that, on ocassion as a bare minimum, we may be mistaken in our judgments of people. The line separating the fool, the genius and the madman is blurred and we are unsure how to make a judgment.

The strangeness of the matter is compounded by the belief that ''fool'' and ''genius'' are diametric opposites of each other. And yet, as I've shown above the distinction between the three is not all that clear.

What's going on here? The least we can do is be cautious about our judgments of people.