{"id":4367,"date":"2007-07-11T14:39:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-11T14:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2007\/07\/bad-arguments\/"},"modified":"2007-07-11T14:39:00","modified_gmt":"2007-07-11T14:39:00","slug":"bad-arguments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2007\/07\/bad-arguments.html","title":{"rendered":"Bad arguments"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>I took the time today to post a comment on a <a href=\"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/insolence\/2007\/07\/the_perpetuation_of_bad_arguments_1.php\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">science blog entry about bad arguments and global warming<\/a>. Here\u2019s what I wrote:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>In our <a href=\"http:\/\/www.indystar.com\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">local newspaper <\/a>we once had someone say write a letter to the editor which basically said \u2018Enough with the global warming already, didn\u2019t you notice it\u2019s COLD OUTSIDE?\u2019 If most people cannot distinguish between \u2018climate\u2019 and \u2018weather\u2019, much less understand the diverse effects of climate change, how are we to manage to have serious discussions of this among the general public?<\/p>\n<p>The United States has developed into a culture where people are polarized, and all new information and expressions of viewpoints are first evaluated by seeing where they come from, then dismissing them and ridiculing them on the basis of their source. Before we can hope to accomplish CLIMATE change, we need to figure out how to accomplish CULTURE change and do something about the appalling lack of critical thinking and the general unwillingness to examine evidence and discuss issues in a serious, well-informed, intelligent and calm manner.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>While global warming is an important issue, the underlying issue that we argue in a lawyer-like fashion, attempting to get our opinions off the hook rather than genuinely investigate evidence regardless of where it may lead us, is in many respects more troubling.<\/p>\n<p>Those interested in the broader subject of global warming and the environment may find the series <a href=\"http:\/\/gristmill.grist.org\/skeptics\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">How To Talk To A Climate Skeptic <\/a>interesting.<\/p>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/7622297540113836091-7126209843326114373?l=exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com\" alt=\"\"><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I took the time today to post a comment on a science blog entry about bad arguments and global warming. Here\u2019s what I wrote: In our local newspaper we once had someone say write a letter to the editor which basically said \u2018Enough with the global warming already, didn\u2019t you notice it\u2019s COLD OUTSIDE?\u2019 If [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Bad arguments<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I took the time today to post a comment on a science blog entry about bad arguments and global warming. 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