The Brainiest Cities in the U.S.

We love lists.  They're catchy, they give us something to argue over, and they make for fun stories.  Here's one I just came across thanks to the magic of Twitter: America's Brainiest Cities.

Oh dear, you're thinking, this is gonna be bad.

To save time, here's the list of America's 25 brainiest, according to the metrics a company created (read the story for a discussion):

1. Charlottesville, Virginia
2. Lafayette, Indiana
3. Anchorage Alaska
4. Madison, Wisconsin
5. San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose 
6. Cedar Rapids-Waterloo-Iowa City & Dubuque, Iowa
7. Honolulu
8. Johnstown-Altoona, Pennsylvania
9. Champaign & Springfield-Decatur, Illinois
10. Minneapolis-St. Paul
11. Boston-Manchester (Massachusetts/New Hampshire)
12. Austin
13. Rochester, New York
14. Gainesville, Florida 
15. Fargo-Valley City North Dakota
16. Lansing, Michigan 
17. Santa Barbara-Santa Maria-San Luis Obispo
18. Burlington-Plattsburgh (Vermont/New York) 
19. Pittsburgh
20. Syracuse, New York
21. Baton Rouge, Louisiana
22. Columbia-Jefferson City, Missouri
23. La Crosse-Eau Claire, Wisconsin
24. Harrisburg-Lancaster-Lebanon-York Pennsylvania
25. Springfield-Holyoke, Massachusetts

Many make sense. College towns, noted cities.  But Baton Rouge?  Sorry, I've spent a lot of time in Baton Rouge, La., and brainy is not one of the first words that comes to mind, otherwise I can't really quibble without delving deeply into their methodology, which I'm not going to do because it's the first day of summer class and probably I need to actually prepare for the semester in the next hour or so.