There is a good reason Americans stink at chess - our unfailing optimism. No matter how bad things get with the economy or the environment or (insert your pet cause here) Americans will always believe that, because we have Jessica Alba, we beat the pants off of everyone else. Russians, for example, don’t think that way. Half of Moscow is populated by women hotter than Jessica Alba and they’re all on a Russian dating site hoping to meet an American mechanic who will get them a green card and raise their kid.
Scientists, American or otherwise, are not afflicted by that kind of sunny disposition. People have a perception that science is a happy wonderland where you come up with an idea and everyone rallies around you and supports you while you try to prove it. Nothing can be further from the truth. Science is done by falsification.
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