Sense, Nonsense, and Not-Sense

Well, some studies have previously shown that wearing glasses does make people more likely to think you're intelligent. Which is a plus, anyway. (I wear glasses, and I can't imagine ever wearing contact lenses, for multiple reasons. Even if the only glasses were the horrible clunky ones I had when I was 16...)

On the topic of challenging Christianity: well, yes, but then, since there's no existing primary evidence of the more mythical bits of the Christian history, it's hardly like that's news, is it?

On the topic of a world without America: quite so. Without America... it seems unlikely that the same advances wouldn't have been made by other people. Consider that the UK and Germany were the leading scientific centres in the world pre-1940s, and that's with the US actually still existing...