Hacker News Reader

Comment by p1necone | Hacker News Reader

So many people seem to have this weird misconception that there can be no right answer to something just because one political party disagrees with another on it. I wish people would entertain the possibility that either side might actually just be wrong about things sometimes (often trivially). (hypothetically) It would not be "bias" to talk about one side being wrong much more than the other if that was actually the case.

I think a lot of people use this fallacious call to "give both sides an un-'biased' chance" to derail discussion in a very intellectually dishonest way when we should be reasoning about things without turning them into political arguments.

View on HN

There are some subjects where this is correct and one side is definitely correct while the other isn't, global warming being the first subject that comes to mind. Global warming is real, there is scientific evidence of this, and anyone who doesn't believe in it is ignorant of this evidence.

However, there are many subjects where there is no single correct way to do things. How do we manage our culture? How does our society handle immigration properly? Should we promote certain ideals or family values? For these issues, if you _don't_ give both sides an un-biased chance, then you are picking sides.

Your motte and bailey arguments on global warming are not the way to approach this. Global warming is not the phrase used in nomenclature anymore, it is climate change because the worry is that humans are throwing the climate out of stability. However, where true disagreement occurs from those arguing against climate change is the level of impact humans have on the climate. The various models have to make a determination on the feedback loop of carbon dioxide into the overall earth system; it varies from model to model. This leads to the issue which an honest debate can be had: If anthropogenic climate change is occurring that will cause real damage to the planet, what is the range to adjust to and what should be done about it? If you believe strongly that the damage is occurring, would you be willing to wage war on countries who disregard the globe's needs and bring them to heel for their non compliance? China is throwing out massive amounts of air pollutants, getting them to compliance means shutting down the electrical means of them bringing themselves out of poverty.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com