Calzaer

Mediancat:
Ah, ok. I understand that a bit better. And given the links above, the Stem Cell Research hurdle might be a good example of it affecting his political platform negatively. I apologize if it sounded like I was snapping at you, I didn't intend offense.

Clutch:
Thinking and coming to an incorrect conclusion is more worrisome than not thinking at all?

I suppose I can see where you're coming from on that one, but I'm going to have to disagree. I'd put more trust in someone who's been shown to actually think about things, even if their conclusion is erroneous, than I would someone who simply doesn't think at all.

...well, ok, unless I was part of the conspriracy pulling the strings, but other than that...

capsaicin67

I don't think Kucinich presents well at all. I haven't researched him online, but when I've seen him speak he reminds me of a cross between Alfred E. Neuman and an SCTV character. I found the content to be entirely unconvincing [I'm not saying that he didn't mean it---I'm simply saying he was not persuasive or compelling to me] and unremarkable as well. He's not charismatic that's for sure.

Clutch

No. But that is a serious underdescription of things. One can come to an incorrect conclusion despite impeccable reasoning; sometimes the data really are misleading. The problem with enthusiastically endorsing a psychic medium isn't that this is mistaken; the problem is that it's really awful reasoning -- the sort the would produce lousy results even were the data reliable. It reveals a general defect in one's ability to analyze evidence about some new phenomenon.

By contrast, not thinking at all about one's religious affiliation is not such a serious general cognitive flaw, since religious affiliation of the sort I mentioned is often not a cognitive matter at all, but a matter of custom, habit, community identification, family traditions, and so forth.

Of course I'd prefer to see a more self-examined person in office. But it strikes me as an obvious choice between someone with an unreflective-because-compartmentalized religion of convenience and habit, and someone who explicitly evaluates some phenomenon and is easily duped.