Now if you clicked on this expecting something else then a rant of sorts on the complete lack of intelligent, rational thought and the complete mangling of science; you might want to click your back button.
Because that's what this is.
Then again, I hope you stay as I have something to say and I will not lie. I would like to be heard.
So for those continuing onward, follow me over the jump,
I am starting to wonder if people are getting enough oxygen. Really I am. I have been wanting to write this for some time as I have noticed over the last couple weeks how completely freaken stupid some here have been acting. And I can only conclude that either people have gone stark raving mad or there mental process is being impeded.
In full disclosure, this was prompted by yet another Monsanto diary long on claims and yet short on evidence.
However truth is that what I have to say applies to almost any topic in which science is used. So this is about so much more then just Monsanto, which in the scheme of things is of debatable importance. So for those reading, a remainder, this applies for critical thinking and science in general.
Now without further delay, my rant:
I can't help but notice that many people keep making the same mistakes in critical thinking and in using science. So I want to list them and then go though why they are so bad.
The world is not binary
This seems to be a favorite assumption of people. Namely that if one questions a diary or conclusion then they are obviously against it. That you are either with us or against us. Really this might be the stupidest assumption people make. Didn't we have enough of this under Bush? How is it we can get it right when it's not us and yet screw up so badly when it is us?
No matter how much you might wish the world to be that simple, it is not. No matter how much you try to hide from it; the fact is that the world is in shades of gray. There are a host of reasons why someone might question any given diary.
I can understand that emotions get involved, but there are no excuses here. We are all ostensibly reasonable mature people here. We should in theory be able to disagree without being disagreeable. Further even accounting for emotions, understanding only gets you so far. Do we not strive to be mature and rational? Because if so then as I see it there are no excuses. Either you do it or you don't. You can't be kinda, sorta mature or kinda, sorta rational. Sure we might not always hold ourselves in that state but the state itself either exists or it doesn't.
Anything else or anything less turns us into the liberal version of redstate.
The onus is on the author and the diary
It's that simple people, when someone writes a diary or the positive claim is theirs. It is up to them to make a solid case. If they fail it's their fault. They same goes when someone makes an actual claim about some aspect of science.
And we need to accept that because there's a cult of personality here that is as insidious as it is dangerous. People will write bad diaries eventually. I don't care if you are the Einstein of the blogging world; you will eventually make a mistake. And there is no sin in pointing that out. I don't care how much you like the person, if we are a reality based community we have to recognize this. We need to hold everyone to the same standard here or we are frankly no better then the Right wing that constantly plays favorites and alters the scale depending on who is talking.
And bringing back my first point, just because someone writes a bad diary does not inherently reflect poorly on them. The world is shades of gray people and that means people screw up.
Before someone says it, this is true even if the diarist is right. Anything less creates the foundation for a lax standard that eventually gets the current result of active misunderstandings being promoted to the rec list.
Good science, not made up science
Maybe because I am a scientist but this more then anything irritates me. Some people here don't seem to know what good science is.
So allow me to make it simple, it's peer reviewed and it uses evidence, facts and experimentation. Good science is not allowing a persuasive emotional argument to sway you. Science does not care what your emotional stake is, it simply is. Good science speaks for itself, it should not require anything more then simple presentation of the facts.
It is not making a claim you can not back up. It is not making an emotional argument because you or someone you know was wronged. Or because you think think something is 'evil' or because you think you know better. If you are right, the facts, the science will speak for itself.
Of course good science sometimes produces results that are contradictory. This is natural and expected especially for some of the complicated subjects we discuss. In that case however it comes down to weight of evidence. And even then both sides are probably going to have to just agree to disagree. (this wraps back up to my first point).
Lay off the emotional anecdotal appeals
Emotions are great things most of the time. But it is tiresome to see this blunt emotional anecdotal appeals that attempt to play on one's emotions. It's at best intellectually lazy to work that way, if not outright dishonest.
It's one thing to have a topic be emotionally charged, it's another thing to bring in a story, for it's emotional value and act like it proves something. It does not.
Some might not like this or want to admit it, but horrible things happen every day. That's not to say we should not try to do something about it of course. At the same time we should not kid ourselves and we should not try to use cheap tricks. You want to prove something? Show it's part of a pattern, prove that the story is just more then random statistical noise.
Besides, it's at least slightly insulting because the argument is not an objective appeal, but rather an emotional appeal that may or may not even be right. No matter how bad a person you are, people still tend to feel they are in the right. This is why claims should be made objectively.
Anyways I'm done here, thank you for reading.