Saturday, September 01, 2007

The Onion on opinions

When satire makes more sense than conventional wisdom -- The Onion reports that "38% of people not actually entitled to their opinion":

In a surprising refutation of the conventional wisdom on opinion entitlement, a study conducted by the University of Chicago's School for Behavioral Science concluded that more than one-third of the U.S. population is neither entitled nor qualified to have opinions.

"On topics from evolution to the environment to gay marriage to immigration reform, we found that many of the opinions expressed were so off-base and ill-informed that they actually hurt society by being voiced," said chief researcher Professor Mark Fultz, who based the findings on hundreds of telephone, office, and dinner-party conversations compiled over a three-year period. "While people have long asserted that it takes all kinds, our research shows that American society currently has a drastic oversupply of the kinds who don't have any good or worthwhile thoughts whatsoever. We could actually do just fine without them."

The difficulty, alas, is distinguishing the 38% from the rest...

(Here's a hint though... if you think that "If humans evolved from apes, why are there still apes?" is a good argument against evolution, you're in the 38%.)

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