Bad logic everywhere

There’s an epidemic of bad logic—name-calling, either/or, guilt by association. Some imagine there’s a blood feud between McDemocrats and McRepublicans—two enormous clans of 50 million each. Absurd.

Jumping to conclusions, Clara Erickson insists Democrats did not condemn the baseball shootings. My search engine took me to CBS News where I read condemnations of the violence and tributes to fallen colleagues from Democrats Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, Chuck Schumer, Claire McCaskill, Independent Bernie Sanders, and others.

Why this rush to feel victimized and outraged? Isn’t there enough drama on television—must we manufacture insults and demonize our neighbors?

In a different illogic, Pam Montgomery says we shouldn’t believe in climate change because scientists are often wrong. Examples are an 1879 naval expedition to the North Pole, the 1930s Dust Bowl, and the sci-fi film The Fly. None of this has anything to do with modern climate science.

Historically, scientists have made mistakes, but science has one great advantage: It is self-correcting. Scientists test each idea over and over before they ever accept it, and then only provisionally.

Decades of testing have convinced the vast majority of world scientists that human activities are causing dangerous climate changes. A total of 192 countries representing 95 percent of world population, and 70 percent of Americans accept these findings. But denialists assert a smug superiority over the rest of the world that is out of step. It seems they prefer to believe a confused, paranoid ideology perpetrated by propagandists and politicians in the pay of the fossil-fuel industry. CORALIE KOONCE

Fayetteville