…yes it is quite possible to take a very intelligent human and make them believe completely ridiculous things, in a manner similar to the Marcus/Davis blunder-eliciting inputs (hereinafter BEIs). Given that humans have been provided by evolution with an architecture consistent enough that large swaths of the population are susceptible to the same BEIs, it turns out to be quite profitable to find and use them. Those who have used them since time immemorial are called religions; more recent ones are called ideologies.