User:UBeR/The great bane

Please keep in mind this is a personal opinion held by User:UBeR on the ongoing controversy surrounding the global warming article.

Problem of misleading and false classification
Foremost in what is causing much strife among the users involved in the article debates is the categorization of certain people by certain people. Often you will see one group call another the "deniers" or the "skeptics." I want to make one thing very clear: I'm not here to deny the science behind global warming. Trust me, the people who deny the theory of global warming annoy me just much as the next guy. My purpose is make sure policies of Wikipedia are being faithfully carried out on certain controversial articles, to make sure people are aware of these policies, and to make sure people adhere to them, whatever their status or opinion may be. The premise is simple—the task is difficult. Overall, I'm here to make Wikipedia a better place, whether it be through general cleanup of articles, to avoiding weasel words, to contributing content. So when I am being classified as "the dissenter" or the "non-believer," it only serves to stifle my real goals here. Using this excuse and label to detract from the opinions is not only egregiously fallacious, it also useless, insulting, and distracting. But it works. By falsely labeling people, and thus appealing to emotion, people choose to ignore bona fide suggestions made by the people who have been categorized as "automatically incorrect." This is the sort of logic up with which I will not put! I hope you see how this dangerous kind of logic only retards the ultimate goal of Wikipedia.

Similarly, there people who wish to go a step further and call people "unlearned," or "unscientific." These are a clear violation of the no personal attacks policy. It also a red herring similar to the ones above. In fact, much of suggestions are completely unscientific in nature because they have nothing to do about the science. I have no problem with science. I work in the field of science. So using these false premises to take away from the real discussion is just mind boggling wrong, yet people seem to fall for such bad reasoning and it only adds to the bane of the article.

Likewise, there are those who label others as the "pro-GW" or "sheep." This is equally harmful. These oversimplifications are best to be avoided. Such issues are not so cut and dried. This isn't about teams. This about working together to make a meaningful discussion where all opinions are considered and discussed.

We have seen much of this problem is in the way we are thinking. In many ways, this is a philosophical problem. A problem rooted in the lack of logical thinking.

Scope of global warming
Now that we have covered one of the reasons why there is aversion amongst the debaters, we must cover what the real problems are with the article.