Balance is Bullshit

As my favorite apologist for science and atheism, Richard Dawkins, reminds us, "...when two opposite points of view are expressed with equal intensity, the truth does not necessarily lie exactly halfway between them. It is possible for one side to be simply wrong."

Wether it's in the media, politics, or academia, balance is not intrinsically good. Free expression of ideas is good, and debate is a vital part of democracy. But debate should have, as its fundamental aim, the intent to arrive at the most accurate form of truth. If the media, our profs, and our elected reps. would admit this, we would go a long way in removing our collective heads from the pink, fleshy tissue of our own colons. Compromise is invalid when we're compromising with stupid.

So, when certain people have a problem with prolonged debate, we should cast a skeptical eye to their intentions. Especially if it's a person who doesn't know the difference between "disassemble" and "dissemble." Or someone who calls an Amnesty Report "absurd" based on one little word in the introduction - "gulag" - which allowed this administration to ignore the facts of the report. Bad use of language, Amnesty, but not nearly as bad as these bullshit non-rebuttals.

Unfortunately we live in a society that has little interest in an idea too large to fit on a gawddamn bumper sticker.