Stupid people believe in angels. That's one of Aaron Sorkin's go-to banter formulas that was recently repeated by Jeff Daniels's character Will McAvoy in his opening rant in HBO's Newsroom. One of the many reasons America is not the greatest country in the world, McAvoy tells a college audience, is that America leads the world in "the number of adults who believe angels are real."
Sorkin, and others who share his view, would probably be surprised to know just how irrational we all are. Not all of us believe in angels, but we regularly attribute human behaviors to inanimate objects, such as toys. We speak to animals. We yell at computers. We think that burying a Red Sox jersey in Yankee stadium will affect the outcome of baseball games.
