"These sorts of people" is an interesting way to distance ourselves from this, as though we the tech-enlightened were somehow hardened against weaving our reasoning through the maze so that it reaches our predetermined conclusion.

I actually caught myself doing this last week while I was writing a response to a HN comment. I was emotionally invested in my assertion (that fat people are fat because they overeat, rather than the overeating being a symptom of some people's propensity to store more fat). It started out with constructing an argument that satisfied my conclusion, and each time I encountered some thought-roadblock, I diverted traffic down an alternate street. After several times of doing this, it dawned on me just how disingenuous this entire process was becoming, so I decided the better attitude is that of a fence sitter: committed to hearing future arguments from both sides -- made by people who are smarter than I, no less -- and then deciding which argument was more convincing.

It's been said in many ways by many authors, but this has helped me: "Imagine everyone is enlightened, except you. Then try to figure out what they were sent to teach you."

We are these sorts of people.

Surely you cannot deny that some people seem to have more of a tenancy to lean towards non-scientific thinking than others.

Everybody is rude on occasion, but only some people are rude people.