[Dove]

By that standard, the guy on the bus who tells me about lasers from outer space that make his legs hurt when he talks about the government . . . he's a fair representative of "most scientists".

If you want to take random encounters with people on the street as representative of a philosophy, you have to at least go to a place where that philosophy is practiced. To talk to the 'average scientist', you'd better at least be looking for him on a university campus -- better at a conference somewhere. To talk to the 'average Christian', you had better at least be looking in a church.

It's not just a sampling issue; those groups also police their membership. What you want to take an average over is not people who declare themselves 'hackers', but people who the community of hackers agrees are 'hackers'. Best way to do that is go to where they meet.