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I was telling a close friend about a debate two people I knew were having and at one point, my friend made the following remark, “Well, the truth always lies somewhere in the middle.”

Well, no, that statement is a complete falsehood and one which irritates me every time I hear it.  The truth does not ALWAYS lie in the middle.  It could and usually does reside somewhere in between but not necessarily.  Sometimes there is just right or wrong and the truth lies at either end.

President Obama’s fiscal policies are the right way to go.

Here the truth no doubt lies somewhere between yes and no.  Time might show that the President has made the right decisions  or, instead, that his policies have been a complete disaster. An issue such as this is definitely worthy of debate as both sides can make strong arguments in favor of their position.

Abortion.

Again, no right or wrong but less tangible in terms of how one supports his or her arguments.  Matters of ethics are never cut and dry. The religious, emotional as well as the pragmatic side of this debate are all relevant.

Evolution.

This one’s easier in that right and wrong are more easily discernible.  Creationist “science” is bogus and not worthy of  true debate. The arguments are on a par with those of the Flat Earth Society.  In the 150 years since Darwin proposed the Theory of Evolution, there has not been one – NOT ONE – scientific discovery or revelation which disproves the tenets of evolution and one is all that’s needed to banish a scientific thought to the waste bin.  While scientists vigorously debate the mechanisms of evolution they do not debate its existence.  So no, as passionately as creationists may argue their side, they are not 50% correct or even 1% correct.  They’re just wrong.

And while I’m on this issue, let me note that evolution does not discount the existence of God.  Actually, evolution says nothing of God or gods or even how life began.  Evolutionary theory begins once life is established.

Climate Change.

I put this one on a par with the evolution ‘debate’.  It’s dubious at best.  Climate change deniers work hard to make it appear that there is a real debate going on within the scientific community as to whether or not man has had a significant impact on global warming.  There is no such debate beyond the propaganda one hears from conservatives on Fox and elsewhere.  The real debate, as with evolution, concerns itself with the mechanisms which drive global warming and not on whether it exists or on whether man has had a detrimental effect on climate change.

Unless one is a qualified scientist, all we can do is take a look at who is saying what.  On one side we have the UN’s International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) composed of the world’s leading scientists.  We have the top scientific institutions from EVERY industrialized nation in the world all on the same page.  We have the disciplines of climatology, geology, chemistry, physics, etc. all working independently and coming to basically the same conclusion: man is a major cause of global warming.  We have a ton of peer-reviewed articles published in the leading scientific journals to back up their claims.

On the other side we have a handful of scientists, politicians and industry people who discount the case for global warming.  A large number of the denier’s scientists have been shown to be on the Exxon payroll and Exxon itself has spent millions on lobbyists and propaganda campaigns to create the illusion of a scientific debate.  There are no peer-reviewed scientific studies to which the Deniers can point to to back up their fraudulent claims.  This is a faux debate.

So no, Virginia, the truth does not always lie somewhere in the middle.  Sometimes the truth lives all by itself at one end of the ‘debate’ while the shysters and uninformed live at the other.

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