Opposing points of view
Today, my high school alma mater, Catlin Gable, posted a podcast from Headmaster Michael Heath about taking opposing sides of an argument seriously. It was a good reminder of how divisive and contrary we can become while involved in a debate. Heated arguments usually result in alienation and elevated emotions. In the sciences, popular media loves to pick up on these heated debates because they gain viewership.
CBI's post for www.blogactionday.org
Today, my high school alma mater, Catlin Gabel , posted a podcast from Headmaster Michael Heath about taking opposing sides of an argument seriously. It was a good reminder of how divisive and contrary we can become while involved in a debate. Heated arguments usually result in alienation and elevated emotions. In the sciences, popular media loves to pick up on these heated debates because they gain viewership. Really though, we lose our ability to view a topic from all sides. Heath says in the podcast that tolerance is great but if we stop there we forfeit the chance to fully understand ourselves or the other person let alone the issue at hand. Currently, there is no science topic hotter (sorry about the pun there) than climate change. This morning while reading through posts from my twitter stream I came across a story from someone I follow. He had made reference to an article in a publication I probably would never have read. The story was about Retired NASA Astronaut Phil Chapman's claims that the earth is actually cooling and not warming. I attempted to reserve my assumptions and actually read it. While I did not agree with Chapman's statements I came away with a new perspective. We can learn much, just as I did as a student at Catlin, from trying to set our biases aside, listen to our debaters and attempt to fully understand not only our opponents arguments, but in the process our own better as well.
Your thoughts?
Download the podcast here.
Political bias
From Wikipedia: In March, 2009 Forbes featured Newsmax and described Ruddy's company as a "media empire" and the "great right hope" of a troubled Republican Party. Forbes noted that after just a decade of operations it had become a "media powerhouse" - and had surpassed such well known web sites as the Drudgereport in web visitors. According to the magazine, Newsmax draws 3.8 million unique visitors monthly. Political analyst Dick Morris was quoted as saying that Newsmax had become the "most influential Republican-leaning media outlet" in the nation.
Just because a publication has "News" in the title does not mean that it is a credible source of science information. It seems that Newsmax has an agenda and is probably not the best source of unbiased scientific news. It seems best to stick with the primary literature with highly politicized like global climate change. Has Chapman published his 'point of view' with supporting data in a peer-reviewed scientific journal?