Christopher Pearson, and always let stupidity get in the way of sound science ...

First the interesting news: the intermittently variable Malcolm Gladwell is on hand in The Order of Things to thoroughly diss the simple-minded way ratings and rankings avoid the complexities and ambiguities of the real world.

But you have to be able to move behind The New Yorker's paywall to read it.

On the other hand, for free, you can read Christopher Pearson's Never let the facts get in the way of a good plot, and arrive at this ultimate couple of pars:

No amount of government-funded propaganda and committees of experts headed by the likes of Tim Flannery can reinvent it as a major economic reform, let alone the greatest moral challenge of our time.

On the same day, the Institute of Public Affairs released the findings of a Galaxy poll it had commissioned. The poll was taken last week and replicated the results of another taken eight months ago. Only one-third of Australians think the world is warming due to human carbon dioxide emissions.

Uh huh. A poll.

That reminds me of some findings in the United States. A Pew poll in 2007 found that while 57% believe that the earth's climate was changing, only thirty six per cent believed that humans were responsible.

On the other hand, a Baylor University survey in 2008 found that half of all Americans believe they are protected by guardian angels, one fifth say they've heard god speak to them, one quarter say they've witnessed miraculous healings, sixteen per cent believed they'd received one, and eight per cent said they prayed in tongues. (the Baylor survey is here, and an earlier one here).

Meanwhile, in a survey designed more for fun than insight, some 24% of Americans agreed to the proposition that alien beings have come to earth and walk amongst us in our communities, disguised as us, while Australia scored a more than respectable 23% (only the disdainful Dutch, Swedes and Belgians managed an 8% score - here).

That follows another Ipsos survey which noted that 34% of Americans said they believed in UFOs and ghosts, while a poll done to celebrate Darwin's birthday found only four in ten in the United States believe evolution is a valid scientific theory (here for the Gallup poll).

By definition, Pearson, as a devout Catholic, is a believer in angels and other imaginary friends, and as we've known for a long time, he believes that so far as global warming goes, it's the volcanoes what done it. (Pearson claims that undersea volcanoes cause global warming - some links within the story no longer work).

So what's the point of Pearson celebrating the ignorance of Australians? Apart from basking in the reflection of his own ignorance? Well naturally, as professional lap poodle to Tony Abbott, it's to predict doom for Julia Gillard:

Let me finish on an unaccustomed oracular note. Julia Gillard's announcement on Thursday that she intends to press ahead with a carbon tax is a folly that will prove to be her undoing. No endorsement from Labor's so-called three wise men -- Bob Carr, Steve Bracks and John Faulkner -- can lend gravitas to the decision.

Unaccustomedly oracular? The prattling goose is oracular on a weekly basis ...

Meanwhile, Pearson spends the rest of his column bemoaning the Fairfax press, and opens with a blast at Glen Milne. Oh dear, sic transit gloria mundi Milnus, who was 'let go' by News Corp back in 2010 (Oh dear: Expensive Glenn Milne axed), and soon after started scribbling for the ABC's The Drum. (and if you want to feel better about yourself, you only have to read Milne dribbling here).

According to Pearson, scribbling for the devil has turned Milne into a latter day Banksy.

The task of journalism is to sift what sources say and establish the truth. Milne's approach strikes me as a lazy postmodern exercise that licenses treating any beguiling lie as an artefact in its own right and worthy of reporting. A little further down that path, the scope of journalism narrows to the inspection of one's own entrails.

Never mind that postmodernism has been defined by Fredrick Jameson as the dominant cultural logic of late capitalism. A sloppy use of the term postmodern is an important element in examining any entrails.

Because you see Pearson thinks the exposure of Scott Morrison's entrails, dragged around the national media recently, is all the fault of the Fairfax press.

No, no, it wasn't anything he said or did, it was all a fit up, by Lenore Taylor, Laura Tingle, Peter Hartcher, and Tony Walker.

What a pity that Pearson didn't read Dennis Atkins in a - gasp - News Corp rag, as he reminds us of the tricks deployed by Scott Morrison during his time NSW state Liberal director helping out against notorious Muslim Ed Husic (Scott Morrison not new to racial divide and conquer ploy).

And if it's all a Fairfax plot, what on earth is Samantha Maiden doing in the HUN - a News Corp rag - scribbling Power play hit Abbott's authority, and in passing noting:

... It was reported that Morrison had suggested that the Coalition needed to capitalise on growing unease about Muslim migration.

Liberal sources confirmed he was warned at the meeting that was a dangerous path, with Julie Bishop and Philip Ruddock among others pointing out that the Coalition had always supported a non-discriminatory immigration portfolio.

Morrison dismissed the "gossip", while other colleagues privately confirmed the substance of the reports.

Other colleagues privately confirmed the substance of the reports? Oh no, it's a News Corp plot to do down Scott Morrison.

But we're down wit Pearson. Never let the facts get in the way of a stout hearted defence of Tony Abbott and the crew sailing the good ship Doctor No.

Meanwhile, if Pearson had troubled to look a little further than his own nose or the Liberal party entrails, he might have noticed Cory Bernardi getting into a spot of bother by denouncing Islam as a "totalitarian, political and religious ideology." (Islam's the problems, not Muslims, says Senator Cory Bernardi - sic), and for proclaiming that he doesn't want to eat meat butchered in the name of an ideology that is mired in sixth century brutality and is anathema to his own values. (Morrison: putting the alpenhorn into dog whistling).

Exactly. Which is why we no longer attend the local butchery on a Sunday to drink the blood and eat the flesh of a long dead man mired in a kind of first century fixation with brutal sadistic crucifixion of a Mel Gibson kind. (and more on transubstantiation here).

Naturally Pearson can't resist joining in:

Nor did he (Tony Walker of the infidel Australian Financial Review) concede that some Muslim migrants have no intention of being integrated into Australian society because they are contemptuous of some of its fundamental features, such as a commitment to democracy and the equality of the sexes.

At last! We've waited a long time, but finally a call from Pearson, secularist and feminist, for the Catholic church to open up its hierarchy and share power with women, and enact in a truly meaningful way the equality of the sexes. Next thing you know he might even turn into a Cathar ...

Sorry to tell you, but you've been dreaming again.

The good George Pell once wrote a tract explaining Why can't Catholic women be priests?, and once he got the gig, he stayed true to form:

DR GEORGE PELL: I firmly believe in the contribution and leadership of women in public life and in Church life.

But not as women priests or bishops.

SEAN MURPHY: Why not?

Because Christ didn't organise it that way ...

SISTER MARY MOONEY, BRIGIDINE NUN: Women make up 60 per cent to 70 per cent of the church population.

For women not to be included equally men is not a Christian stance. (here)

Yep, you know you're in the presence of pious hypocrisy when Pearson rabbits on about women and equality, and ignores the mote in his own Catholic eye.

Still his call for the banning of Catholicism, for refusing to integrate into Australian society because it is contemptuous of some of its fundamental features, such as the equality of the sexes, is a forward step ...

A pox on all the imaginary friends in the world, and if you're interested in climate change, instead of reading Pearson the news that Nature is launching a journal dedicated to the science in April 2011 might be of interest ...

(Below: not that we'd want to be a member of a club that would have us as a member).

(And finally a note to a reader. Sorry, don't do emails, and no I'm not Lindsay).