a tissue of lies I won't even blow my nose into

What I meant about southern vs northern is that northern people tend to be more left wing than southern people. Consider Canada and the northern states as opposed to the south, or northern Europe opposed to southern Europe. Of course that could all be the accident of history, but it seems to be that when winter comes people have to stick together and where it never gets cold people can strike out on their own whenever they want.

You know why people who believe in science stick together? It is because they live in areas where knowledge is respected, people are well-educated, people have to be educated to do the jobs that are available. You know why people who don’t believe in science stick together? It’s because they are backwater hicks who went to crappy schools and they believe that every word in the bible comes from God, and if it ain’t in the bible you don’t need to know it.

That’s a little extreme of course, but in general I am inclined to dismiss that article out of hand. I’m sure you know about non sequitur. That’s where you say something that is true (birds of a feather flock together) and you follow it with another statement (people only believe in science because that’s what their neighbors believe in) which has nothing to do with the first one.

I don’t know who you are quoting, that guy in the science-communication biz (if he’s a science writer why doesn’t he call himself that, pompous ass) is full of crap. I could find probably ten science writers who would say the opposite thing.

And I am going to likewise dismiss that ‘study’ that showed that people who were more knowledgeable about science were as likely to fall on one side of a controversy, which I assume here is global warming, as poppycock. The better educated always tend to believe in global warming more than the bible thumping hicks.

I don’t know why you bring these crackpot articles into our hallowed forum. If you have something to say of course I am interested, but if it’s just something you read somewhere, I’m not interested. And quoting from dubious sources (titans of the science communications conglomerate) and citing anonymous ‘studies,’ well it just gets me all fired up in the morning, and it’s best that I don’t get fired up. In conclusion, I dismiss the whole article out of hand.

There, I feel better now. We don’t get to choose our neighbors and we don’t get to choose our coworkers. But I suppose within those groups we get to choose among the people there, some we like, and some we don’t. I guess their beliefs matter but I don’t think it’s the ruling thing, we like some people who believe the opposite of what we believe and some people who think like us we can’t stand.

And speaking of Shakespeare, where the hell did he learn how to spell.