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Comment by tjic | Hacker News Reader

The proper approach to these debates is either (a) rational ignorance [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_ignorance ], (b) study up on both sides.

I dislike the word "revisionism" as a slur against the standard position. Revision is good. When more data comes to light, one should reevaluate what one things one knows. "Revisionism" is another word for "the scientific method" ; it should not be a slur.

I've done a fair bit of reading on all of these, and I am convinced of the "standard" position on all, except two. Anthropogenic Global Warming and Peak Oil have a lot less solid science behind them than the others, and replace it with (IMO) dubious modeling.

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Definitions certainly get muddled. Revisionism, skepticism, and denialism. You have to be really careful about labels, but we should all agree that skepticism (esp. of the scientific variety) is good but when it becomes denialism, we've left the rational world.

I find these topics fascinating. In fact, I think everyone should dig into one just as a mental exercise. Convince yourself. You will learn a tremendous amount, even from the most bizarre. And not just about science or whatever topic is at hand, but at logic, fallacy, and how people think about and convince themselves of things.

I've dug fairly deep into things like 9/11 conspiracy theories, creationism, moon hoaxes, tax protesters, and other assorted "alternative" theories (like homeopathy). I am 100% convinced they are all nonsense, but I encourage anyone to dig in. You'd be simply amazed how much you can and will learn.

You can start with the hollow (or flat) earth.

Brought to you by the same guy who invented the Dark Sucker theory: http://home.netcom.com/~rogermw2/square_earth.html

EDIT: he also has a Force Skeptics page that might be relevant to our discussion. http://home.netcom.com/~rogermw2/force_skeptics.html

Tax protesters?

People say there is no law authorizing the income tax. I don't remember the arguments nullifying the 16th amendment, but they have them.

Oh yes, those loons. I think they argue it was never ratified by one state or another.

I'd pick a name other than "tax protesters" for them, though, to distinguish them from your run-of-the-mill folks who like to protest that taxes should be lower.

> Anthropogenic Global Warming ...

That brings up an interesting point. After all, the OP didn't say "anthropogenic"; he only said "global warming". And some people deny that as well. That gives us three positions: (1) the earth is warming up and humans made it happen, (2) the earth is warming up and humans didn't make it happen, and (3) the earth is not warming up. And then there are endless variations about how much it will warm up, and how much this is a problem, etc.

My point is that, when two sides debate an issue, they can both be wrong. Simply because we are presented with two positions, does not mean we have to choose one of them.

Thus, when the conservatives say one thing, and the liberals say another, we probably need to pick one of the two as something to vote for, but not necessarily as something to believe.

You forgot:

4. The CO2 (and other anthropogenic greenhouse gases) is warming the earth, but the stratospheric sulfur dioxide produced by China's burning of lots of sulfurous coal is beginning to counteract the CO2 warming.

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