Originally Posted by TimJ

Dude, you are one loud, obnoxious, know-nothing. I've got news for you- people do know things. There are facts in this world and it isn't terribly hard to seperate them from things that aren't facts. All it takes is the ability to think critically. Global warming? No, actually, there really isn't evidence pointing "against it". Putting it in terms of "for" and "against" is basically a false construct to begin with and just points to how you think and the way you see the world and process what you see and hear, not to how the world actually works or what "truth" actually is.

I meet dudes like you all the time and your creedo seems to be: They are all the same. Doesn't matter who it is or what the issue is, you see a couple sides and to you they're competetors. They have no integrity except to themselves because they both just want to win

Well the world often doesn't work like that. Take global warming, for instance. Guess what? There's only one "side". If "they" just want to win to fullfill a personal agenda, then the only "side" is the various advocates who deny global warming. Why are "they" a side and not the various global-warming-is-real people? Because the global-warming-is-real people are akin to the gravity-is-real people. Gravity isn't a debate or a competition or a goal, gravity is a natural phenomenon. Gravity has been studied, observed and tested by many scientists over many years and did you know, they still don't completely understand gravity? Yeah, the exact mechanics and manifestations of gravity aren't completely understood, but you're not going to find anyone arguing against gravity and for "angels hold us on the ground" because that would be completely ********, of course gravity is real.

So's global warming. It's something that's been studied for a number of years by a lot of scientists and pretty much every single scientist on the planet who works in a field related to climate science agrees so-called "global warming" is a real phenomenon, it is occuring, and it is most likely largely a product of human activity. They aren't a "side", they are people who observe, study and test discreet bits of the world in order to understand it better. The presence of advocates or celebrities or "hippies" getting all riled up and in yo' face has absolutely nothing to do with global warming as a natural phenomenon. Now, as for the one side, why are they a side? First of all, they're a side because they're arguing gravity is a hoax. Second, they're a side because they happen to corner the market on "I don't know about you, but my feet stick to the ground because angels hold me down" t-shirts. They're a side because their position is purely political (I'm using that in the broad sense). It isn't based upon any conclusion you could ever reach by carefully studying and testing the world as it is, it's a position you can reach only by denying the world as it is. That's why they're a "side". But, your mind doesn't think critically so you can't see that, you just see two "sides" of people screaming at each other.

Another example, to beat this horse good and dead, would be evolution. There's only 1 side there, the people who deny evolution. Why do they deny it? All kinds of crazy reasons but they all seem to boil down to some religious basis. Why aren't the people who claim evolution is real a side? Because all they've done is observe and test, and the end result of their observations and tests is a description of what the world has told us about how life works. There is no agenda to the theory of evolution (You know what? Gravity is a theory too. Doesn't mean it's not also a fact). The theory of evolution is just the most perfect description of how life works given the facts. All those stupid Darwin fish don't change the fact that there is no agenda to evolution.

The very nature of what science is means there is no agenda to scientific concensus. Scientists can have agendas, proposed theories or examples of tests can be agenda driven, but science already assumes that so that's why anything any legitimate scientist or scientific group proposes or claims is subjected to the scientific process itself in the form of peer review. Global warming isn't a side, you loud, confused, angry young man, it's a description of one aspect of the world, nothing more. The fact that a bunch of paid hit men, business interests and politicians can get people like you to even think of it as a case of "he said she said" and that the truth is probably somewhere else entirely (the idea that the truth is always in the middle is probably the stupidest idea mankind ever came up with) is... really f'ing sad. And pathetic. And makes me sure that we're freaking doomed.