All the Best Googlers End Up Here.

You know those posts that bloggers run every so often that tell readers what Google searches led to their blogs? I love those posts. I always want to do one of those except I can't because with the exception of the surprisingly high number of people who find this post by googling "man butt," my searchers have got to be among the dullest most erudite in Blogistan. I looked at my referrers today and I found "war measures act new york times", "conscience caucus", "the kerry man", "blog gonzales" (I'm inexplicably number one for that phrase - and for "man butt") "walmart bad for the economy" (my personal favorite) and, of course, "esque."

So here's the thing: My hits are almost exculsively google-driven on weekends. I will reward any searchers who click through to the main page with the following tribute to their egghead ways.

The NYT ran a great column on Tuesday in the Science section. John Brockman asked "scientists, futurists and other creative thinkers" (eggheads) what they believe is true, but they cannot prove. The NYT, god bless them, only ran excerpts of the answers. The complete answers are at Edge.

There are the answers you'd expect: there is a god, there isn't a god, consciousness good, consciousness a trick of nature. But there are some surprises, like this one:

Judith Rich Harris, Writer and developmental psychologist; author, "The Nurture Assumption"

I believe, though I cannot prove it, that three - not two - selection processes were involved in human evolution.
The first two are familiar: natural selection, which selects for fitness, and sexual selection, which selects for sexiness.
The third process selects for beauty, but not sexual beauty - not adult beauty. The ones doing the selecting weren't potential mates: they were parents. Parental selection, I call it.

Which would mean that the ugly baby gene must be one tenacious son of a gun.

Anyway, I'm not going to blog again until Monday so if you stop by, take a minute and leave your answer to What do you believe to be true but cannot prove? in the comments.

Here's mine: I believe that the Universe manifests itself to people's limited perception as two forces: irony and good luck. If you pay close enough attention, you get lucky; if you don't, every day feels like a cosmic dope slap.

UPDATE: It turns out that I'm not number one for "man butt."

Comments

[Kathy]

What I believe to be true but can't prove? What popped into my head was that my life matters... in the grand scheme of things kind of way.

When I think abut it a bit, it's that there is a reason for hope.

[Margaret]

You have to work really hard everyday to be happy.
Nothing and no other person can make you happy but
if you work hard at it you can be happy.

I do believe this and I can not prove it.

[JD]

I believe that objectivity is possible.

[Rick]

What I believe that I cannot prove? "There is hope."

And most of my hits daily come from googlers — about 250 of 'em on average before the holidays, when it dipped to around 90 and is slowly rising again (currently about 115-120 and still moving back up).

[tas]

I believe that Karl Rove planted those goddamn memos.

[eRobin]

I'm with you on the memos. I also believe that America is effectively disenfranchised. And I believe a six month boycott of WalMart that took their sales growth figures down by half would bring them to their knees.

[shari]

I get Google hits from 'naked granny', which gives me the creeps because I don't even remember writing about her.

[Roxanne]

Bush II is gay.

[eRobin]

Shari: admit it, you have. Google knows.

Roxanne: my mom and I say that all the time. Betty Bowers had a funny piece on that too.

[Mark]

This question was a real buzz-kill for me all weekend. I tried coming up with something deep (other than my belief in God - which is deep but oh so unoriginal) and all that kept coming back into my head was this:

Even with Randy Johnson, the Yankees still won't win the World Series.

Months before the season starts and this is what I can't get out of my head.