re: #43 iceweasel

Part of the problem is the media fetish of being ‘balanced’ or ‘presenting both sides of the story’. They do this even when there’s only one side of the story, as with climate change. The compulsion to pretend that there are two sides here, equally worth listening to, winds up lending credence to ridiculous and dangerous ideas. (Climate change— there’s two sides of the story!)

I also get the impression that a lot of media types don’t understand the vetting and evaluation process inherent in peer review and the research/publication process, and basically view scientific assertions as a kind of appeal to authority. When anti-scientific statements are made, they’re treated as “a different perspective”—a competing appeal to authority—rather than probed regarding the validity of the science.