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Golden Rice – A Touchstone
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| Global distribution of vitamin A deficiency |
Psychologists have documented a human tendency to pick a belief and then defend it at all costs. We all do this to varying degrees, and the more emotionally invested we are in a belief, the more extreme we are in our defense.
In fact, a skeptical world-view is largely about avoiding this mental trap by tentatively accepting or rejecting claims based upon available evidence, and modifying our beliefs as new arguments and evidence come to light. Skepticism values the process over any individual belief.
Since reality is complicated, if one follows an objective process it will often be true that any controversial issue will have valid points on both or all sides. This is not always true (creationists are completely wrong in their denial of evolution, making this a false controversy), but it often is. For this reason, one of my skeptical “red flags” to alert me to the probability that someone is an ideologue rather than an honest broker of information and analysis is whether or not their opinions point entirely in one direction on a genuinely controversial topic.
In other words, if they believe that one side of a controversy is completely wrong all the time on every detail, then it seems more likely that they are biased rather than the facts favoring them 100%….@ NeuroLogica Blog » Golden Rice – A Touchstone:
Source: http://gmopundit.blogspot.com/2013/10/golden-rice-touchstone.html
