Just anecdotal stuff here - I have a neighbor, a very wonderful warm person, with a labyrinth in her back yard, herbs in her garden, essential oils on her shelf. She recently told my youngest daughter that the reason she (my daughter) needed glasses was because on some level she really didn't want to see. Naturally, my jaw dropped. I asked her, you don't think it has anything to do with the curvature of the lenses of her eyes, or that fact that nearsightedness runs in my family? She didn't. Also, she doesn't "believe in" the germ theory of disease. I tend to think of her beliefs as a strange morass of magical thinking and improbable causal relationships, but it works for her.

But back to the original premise, that there are two sides, and a chasm between them, seems too black and white to me. What about a continuum, or a bell curve? Or a Venn diagram? After all, many of us read our horoscopes while in the doctor's office waiting room, or consult feng shui guides and also make annual donations to Doctors Without Borders.

Yes, in some parts of the US there is a virulent strain of anti-intellectualism, but is there really a Skeptics' Movement?