I wrote:
If Jeremy Spinrad wants to hypothesize that a sufficiently poorly
informed individual might have "rationally" jumped to such a
conclusion, I suppose that we could allow that, but it strikes me as
a bit of a stretch on the meaning of "rational".


Nick wrote:

*Perhaps* (this is only my hypothesis) Jeremy Spinrad was only
contending that it would have been a 'quite rational belief' for
people then to accept the authority of some (though not all) medical
'experts' who may have come to that conclusion about Paul Morphy.

_
So far I have seen no reference to medical experts
believing that Morphy's mental problems were caused
by blindfold playing.

I wrote:
Surely part of "rational" includes making some sort of proper effort
to obtain relevant information.


Nick wrote:

By that evidently rather high standard, however, many voters in modern
democracies may not be regarded as necessarily making 'rational'
decisions.


The phrase used by Jeremy Spinrad was "very rational".
It seems to me that if one wants to be very rational
about the idea that blindfold play caused Morphy's
mental troubles, the very first thing one should
consider is whether or not mental trouble was
apparent at any time even remotely close to the
time of the blindfold encounters. Again, people
IN MORPHY'S TIME expressed skepticism about the
strain theory.