My thoughts of this crazy train of quotes:
When someone feels strongly about something that is completely wrong and refuses to budge they deserve to be removed from the conversation.
And who is going to be this omniscient arbiter of all truth, you? This attitude is exactly what leads to censorship, dictatorships, and all other forms of tyranny. "I know I'm right, and anyone who has facts that disagree with mine should be silenced".
So, you say that this type of rhetoric DeathBooger says causes censorship, dictatorship, tyranny, etc. That is simply not true. When something is blatantly proven to be a fact, the truth, etc, and some party completely disregards the validity of the truth (i.e. saying a "legitimate rape will cause a women's body to shut down the assault of the army of sperm," where that just simply isn't the truth), that party should not be part of policy making.
Simply put, DeathBooger is right. Hardline stances on issues based on clearly false information should not have a say in creating policy and law.
Usually, but also especially in this case, hard science could be the arbiter.
Hard science according to who? Which science are we going to choose over the other? Which scientist is going to be given dominion over what is fact and what is not? NAZI'S and Chicoms had plenty of "science" to subjugate people with. They can make up scientific fact just as easily as any other fact. What makes you think that hard science can be any more fair or transparent than any other method of control that we should willingly give up our own ability to decide what is fact? What you are advocating is flat out the most dangerous and insane idea I have ever seen advocated on the forum. It is the abandonment of free speech and freedom of religion, and it's just as crazy as handing over the entire government to the Pope.
No single man or philosophy on this earth today has a monopoly on truth.
You are confusing what the scientific process is and how it relates to public policy.
Science starts out as an experiment that pits a hypothesis or hypotheses against a control. Then, the observations are logged. This same process is repeated again and again to flush out any chance of external variables affecting the data. Then, the data is written into a research article, and then peer reviewed by other scientists. If it meets the standards of the scientific method, then it is published. Meanwhile, in many many other parts of the world, independent scientists (and possibly collaborators) are doing the same thing. Repeating the experiment, writing journal articles, getting them peer reviewed and published. After that is done, if there is a similar signal between the findings, then a general conclusion of the truth or a fact can be gained. Continuing these experiments and gaining similar results, the scientific theory can become scientific law.
Now, bringing up the Nazis and the Chinese Communists is ridiculous. Both are not scientists in of themselves, and they either cherry picked scientific findings, or had their own 'scientists' make studies that follow their ideology. I am very certain that the "facts" that they used do not hold up to the rigors, standards, and findings of the scientific community.
The people in power simply fabricated information and passed it along as scientific fact.
It isn't like some Illuminati-esque super secret society of scientists somewhere in the world is making up bogus information to control the oblivious population of Earth...
The issue is not in Science, it is how policy makers in public office use and/or interpret scientific methods and findings.
-----
Now, I could get into how this all relates with Global Climate Change and how the skeptics, especially ones who hold public office, have all the science process wrong. And Evolution, and the Church and religion passing Creationism, masquerading as "Intelligent Design", as a scientific theory. But that would take too long and be a waste of key presses and my time.
