Americans Are A Credulous Bunch

Via Ross Douthat, Many have expressed shock that 18% of Americans were found, in a recent poll, to think that President Obama is a Muslim -- despite the fact he denies this and there's no reason to think he is. However, this is perhaps put in perspective when you consider that 41% of Americans believe in ESP and 25% believe Astrology works.

Douthat quotes G. K. Chesterton, and there's a sense in which I see his point:

“It’s what I call common sense, properly understood,’” replied Father Brown. ‘It really is more natural to believe a preternatural story, that deals with things we don’t understand, than a natural story that contradicts things we do understand. Tell me that the great Mr. Gladstone, in his last hours, was haunted by the ghost of Parnell, and I will be agnostic about it. But tell me that Mr. Gladstone, when first presented to Queen Victoria, wore his hat in her drawing-room and slapped her on the back and offered her a cigar, and I am not agnostic at all. That is not impossible; it’s only incredible. But I’m much more certain it didn’t happen than that Parnell’s ghost didn’t appear; because it violates the laws of the world I do understand … ‘”

However, I'm unwilling to give benefit of the doubt to thins such as Astrology the way I might be to a something more generally otherworldly such as whether than can be such thing as a ghost.