Disclaimer: Firefly and all its characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and Fox... dang it.

Jayne Cobb wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t book smart like the Doctor… he probably never would be… and hell if he couldn’t care less.

But Jayne wasn‘t stupid. Sure, the Doctor knew all about shots and stitching folk up, but not many in the ’verse knew what Jayne did about guns, grenades, and generally any goodies that injured.

Traditional forms of drink among the ancient Egyptians on Earth-that-was and the florid prose of Shan Yu might of been common knowledge to a Core born boy like Simon; but a rough man named Jayne had real life knowledge to survive on, and survive he did. History and poetry were of little use to Jayne, but in their place he had endless stores of detective like knowledge and tracking skills.

While the Doctor had trained his muscles over the years to perform the small precise movements needed of a surgeon, Jayne had spent even longer training his muscles to react quickly to duck, punch, kick, and swing in order defend himself and very occasionally, others.

Jayne wasn’t a man of many words. Unlike the Doctor with his “incorporeally”, Jayne’s vocabulary contained at it’s highest the word “pretentious”. Just as Simon knew the definitions and spellings of long winded words from books, Jayne had a way with saying just what few simple words were needed.

The Doctor may well of taken psychological classes at his expensive medicad, but he would never be able to silently study a mans face and determine if he was telling to truth like Jayne could. Despite missing the most blatant of social signals, he was able to notice the subtle mannerisms that gave away a liar.

Simon might of graduated in the top three percent of his class, and in one of the best medical schools in Core, but not nobody could say Jayne was stupid with all the smarts he had.