Just came across this. This may help explain jem's position.
" If you have a very strong prior existing belief, chances are it s going to exert a strong bias on how you select and react to evidence on the subject.
In the ideal rational world with loads of expertise and time on your hands, that wouldn t matter when you came across research. If you were interested in the issue, you would carefully assess the biases and strengths of new research, with an equally careful assessment of the existing body of research. You wouldn t make up your mind about the current state of knowledge till after this systematic assessment was done.
But that s not what it s like, is it? In the real world, what we already believe often determines whether we even read something at all. And if it reinforces our belief â Ha! See? I knew it! More proof! we might whizz off an email or a tweet without more than a brief skim of the abstract (or even less).
But if research challenges beliefs we hold dear, we might tear the challenging article to pieces. We tend to look for methodological weaknesses in a way that we don t do if we agree with conclusions.
This selective skepticism is how we deal with a world of too much information and the confusion it could keep us in. But it can lead us badly astray. It s one of the ways that sacred cows get to be sacred cows: not looking too closely at welcome news and energetically discounting inconveniently disquieting results. When results inconveniently emerge that challenge orthodoxy, scientific controversy is inevitable."
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com...al-go-to-the-heart-of-scientific-controversy/
Of course one could argue that this is equally true of me. However this is where being a liberal (and in this case, having an education in the pertinent science) is an advantage. Liberals are more accepting of new information and less reluctant to change than conservatives are. Thus are less likely to get stuck into old modes of thought. Most likely jem formed his opinion on GW many years ago, and being the conservative he is he ain't about to change it. And being a lawyer he's learned vehemence of argument and not truth is the most important thing.
Frankly I'd love to be proved wrong here.........................................................I think.
