Stupid Scientist

"The chances against anything manlike on Mars are a million to one."

—Ogilvy, The War of the Worlds

Scientists are human beings, too. And human beings are often wrong. The problem comes when a character that is mentioned to be a respected, intelligent individual (or sometimes an Absent-Minded Professor) is called on to state or decides to make a comment on how unlikely it is that an impending and usually bad event will occur. They usually dismiss any possibility of disaster by stating extremely low odds that it will happen, and laugh off holders of an opposing viewpoint as "crazy" or "minsinformed" even if they may in fact be a respected colleague and not just an eccentric, insane or paranoid person who also happens to be right. Point is, nobody can sway him once he's publicly declared that there is, without a doubt, |no life on Mars. If they do notice anything wrong, they will likely dismiss it as Within Parameters.

Because the character is held in high regard, everyone listens to them and stops panicking, just in time for the disaster to happen anyway. The character who initially stated these odds often gets involved in the thick of it, quickly changing their mind. This individual may or may not survive. As for their earlier statement, it becomes Hilarious in Hindsight, and they may or may not be called out for it.

If they die in the ensuing cataclysm, it may be as the result of a Death by Irony or A Tragedy of Impulsiveness. In this role they often function as a Red Shirt or a demonstration that Anyone Can Die. If they survive, they sometimes play the role of the Idiot Hero or Ditzy Genius, or rarely The Professor. The character is usually depicted as naive at worst, and is usually genuinely intelligent but out of his or her league. A Stupid Scientist is almost never outright evil.

The Stupid Scientist can be seen as related to Tempting Fate and they usually demonstrate some form of Genre Blindness. They can also be contrasted with The Cassandra, in that both herald the event, but the difference is that the Stupid Scientist denies the disaster and is widely believed while the Cassandra says that it will happen and is completely ignored. The opposite trope is an Ignored Expert, a scientist who tries to warn everyone of danger but is disbelieved. More sensible or recurring Stupid Scientists can be promoted to Agent Scully.

An Einstein Sue will often be faced with one of these, so they can show them up.

Examples of Stupid Scientist include:

Comics

The Doctor from The Stupiders, who not only didn't notice the extreme side effects of his work on the population of Earth, but suggested he should "fix" any so-called issues by creating more of what caused the problem to begin with!

Film

In the Disaster Movie Supervolcano, the main character, a geologist, completely denies the possibility of a disastrous supervolcanic eruption in Yellowstone Park. The supervolcano there erupts in a matter of weeks.
Jurassic Park, where there are repeated claims from park higher-ups that the dinosaurs will not escape and devour everyone. Guess what happens.
- On paper, it was supposed to be perfect; Hammond spared no expense, after all. Except for one:

Nedry: Don't get cheap on me, Dodgson. That was Hammond's mistake.

- Which is why it is stupid, anyway. We are talking about a super high-profile project, that no one has ever attempted before, comprising a park of dangerous animals for which the world knows next to nothing, and there is only ONE person responsible for the security system? This is one lousy security system and management of a project. The investors must be equally stupid to even allow this. It was a disaster waiting to happen rather than unpredictability, as described by Ian Malcolm. Sounds quite predictable to me. Even public libraries have better security than this.
There is a B-movie on Mystery Science Theater 3000 that includes a scientist character who explicitly denies that two moons will collide and destroy a nearby inhabited planet. Guess what happens.
The scientist in Mars Attacks! stated that since the martians are advanced technologically then they should be peaceful. He kept this up until they kidnapped him, cut off his head, and attached it to the body of a dog for the lulz.

Literature

The quoted example is from The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells. Ogilvy, a "well-known astronomer", says that to the narrator at the beginning of the book, right when Martian cylinders are heading to Earth. Nice. To be fair, however, Ogilvy is trying to be rational, and at that point in the story he may be more accurately described personality-wise as an Agent Scully.
- The irony is also somewhat undercut by the beings that invade not being very manlike. "Not very manlike" is not the same thing as being non-existent, unintelligent or friendly...
In H.P. Lovecraft's Cosmic Horror Story "The Whisperer In Darkness", the main character denies the existence of alien life. Naturally he finds out that aliens do, in fact, exist, especially when they disembody and replace one of his friends.
- He also walks straight into the most obvious trap ever devised, even giving a lengthy monologue over how it can't possibly be a dangerous situation. Fortunately the aliens are just as stupid, and do nothing besides drug his coffee which he doesn't drink, giving him a chance to realize what an idiot he was and run away.