[quote=@BrokenPromise]
I'd like to propose a thought experiment. 

There are a bunch if people stuck on an island. All of normal intelligence....
[/quote]

Stop right there. Just what the hell is "intelligence", anyway?

[quote=@BrokenPromise]
Is he smart or stupid?
[/quote]

Again, what is "smart" or "stupid" for that matter? 

Ask 10 people out in the street and I'd wager you'd get at least 5 different answers.

Ok, let's take the prevalent theory that intelligence is the capacity to process information, also associated with analytical thinking and problem solving skills. By that criteria, the scientists in your experiment is a smart guy, yeah. But...wait a moment. How the fuck would he be capable of processing that information if he doesn't have it in the first place...? 

Now, we come to KNOWLEDGE, which is not the same as intelligence. For survival situations, knowledge is far more useful than a high IQ (which is also not an uniform metric for measuring intelligence). You can be the smartest person in the world, but if you can't light a fire you're gonna freeze to death and that's that. Say, I've got a cousin who's a really good hunter, spends a lot of time travelling through the countryside etc. I would absolutely entrust him with my life in a survival situation, but I wouldn't trust him to represent me in a political debate, because I know more about history and politics than he does. Myself, I'm a programmer and can solve a number of complex mathematical problems. Does that make me "smart"? Maybe, but to fill out a simple tax report, I need to go Google that shit, because I can't do it for the life of me. Does that make me "stupid"? See what I'm getting at? 

In your particular example, I'd say that the scientist was a pretty knowledgeable guy and a hero for saving all those other people. However, that doesn't mean I consider his belief in Creationism, a pseudoscience that has 0 empirical evidence to back it up, any less stupid. History is full of really smart people believing really idiotic stuff. 

Intelligence isn't binary. You can be very accomplished in one field and a total idiot in another, as [@Vilageidiotx]mentioned in his post in the last page. Here's an example - a very smart college kid, who has the intellectual capacity to change the world. Unfortunately, he has low emotional intelligence and is socially awkward. Now, I can guarantee you that the chance for this kid to do anything noteworthy with his life are <1%. If you can't express your ideas and if you can't get people to rally behind your cause, you're not going to achieve anything and some well-spoken, less intelligent person is going to walk right over you. 9 times out of 10 this is how the world works. That's why we have so many smart people doing experiments in some forsaken lab, while a bunch of old people that don't know the difference between a monitor and a computer lead the world. So, is the college kid smart or stupid? 

My point being, don't be so quick (not you in particular) to label people when you don't even know what the label entails.