Mystical Statistic(al)

After watching the BBC's excellent Life in Cold Blood on Monday, I wondered if there could possibly be anyone in the world who dislikes David Attenborough.

He's a king among men. Boyishly enthusiastic without being irritating, earnest without being preachy, full of joy and warmth and gravitas. He makes amazing programmes that everyone likes. He's also anti-creationism, which makes me like him even more.

No-one could hate him.

To test this hypothesis, I have taken the scientific method of the Google search.

A search for the phrase "I hate David Attenborough" generates only two results, both from the same source. It's someone's blog, and they're only using it ironically to express their love for meerkats.

No-one, in the whole of the internet, hates Attenborough. And the internet is powered by hate. There's more hate on the internet than anywhere in the physical world (with the possible exception of McDonalds). This surely proves my point.

By way of comparison, a search for the phrase "I hate Gandhi" generates 443 results. I don't want to chance my hard drive by going on any of the sites, but the content of one result reads:

"i hate gandhi i really hate him . he spoiled india like anything. if any 1 r hurted sorry. i told my opinion."

I'm sure this quote isn't the most eloquent example of possible critiques of the Mahatma's life and works. But it made me laugh. I could investigate Gandhi-hate further, but this isn't a political essay; it's SCIENCE.

"I hate Jesus" conjures up a wry 10,200 hits. A bit harsh, I think. He seemed to be nice enough, even if you're not religious. The stat is further highlightes by the fact that "I hate Hitler" has only 8,400 results. Much like Richard Herring, if I had to choose between following Hitler or Jesus, I would almost certainly choose Jesus. The hatred of the internet seems quite misplaced.

To close this little foray into the facts of internet hatred (and let's be clear, these are facts: there's no way these results could be misconstrued or that my method is unreliable), I decided to invert the whole process.

I tried: "I hate myself".

2,110,000 results.

It's a bit frightening to think of this level of self-loathing on a global scale. But, on the other hand, there's a good chance at least 60% of people on the internet are justifiable targets for loathing (SCIENCE). At least more people hate themselves than Jesus, who is at least 75% good (MORE SCIENCE).

Anyway, I think I've conclusively proved that David Attenborough (or D.A. Baracus as he's sometimes called) is never hated, and always liked. And would be an excellent choice for the Messiah.

Better than Jesus, anyway. As 10,200 people would agree (unless one of them was the meerkat fool).