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In general, I greatly enjoyed this piece; as a PhD-holding academic, I found that it hit close to home. But Ms. Mieszkowski does a disservice in her dismissal of one research study on the grounds that it used "hundreds of college students" to form its conclusions. Indeed, most of the science of human nature is derived from the responses of college students. Using college students does not, itself, invalidate a study--it just depends on what questions are being asked. Some are inappropriate ("What presidential candidate do Americans prefer?"--college students won't give us a representative sample) but others are quite apt ("How does the presence of a weapon in the room affect people's aggressiveness?"--college students' unconscious reactions should be similar to most people's).
Unfortunately, Ms. Mieszkowski does not give enough detail for the reader to evaluate why college students may be inappropriate in this sample. Perhaps they are, but without more information, this looks like a broad-brush slander of a study for using accepted research methods. And I hate to see that. I come to Salon for intelligent use of science to better discern the truth in information we receive--not for the convenient use of science to better support an ideological perspective. Let's leave that to Bush and co.
I realize a lengthy discussion of subject sampling procedures would have interrupted the breezy flow of this piece, but Salon's intelligent writers can surely accomplish both breezy and complete.
