Guided by genuine, even selfish, curiosity rather than mere conquest, if you can imagine such.
But IRL, very few people are capable of that. Sooner or later, one upsmanship, ego-defense and/or self-promotion take precedence over the search for the truth. When that happens, one engages selective bias, ignoring the 'opponent's' valid points and selfishishly dodging, obfuscating, splitting hairs, name-calling, jeering and the like. IOW, resorting to childish behavior and rhetoric.
Most of Ratz is dedicated to having fun, and, no shit, I'm all for that.
But I'd like to suggest that we make a special spot for all bullshit to come to an end. That is, a place for 2 individuals to agree to come together and dispassionately compare data on conflicting conclusions, like scientists investigating experimental phenomena, and without dick-measuring, politicising, partisanship and such extraneous pollution ruling the day.
No, I don't mean like the Formal Debates sub-forum at RDF. Even their "formal" debates are so full of rhetoric and posturing that the sub-forum as a whole is a generally a waste of time to read. I mean something along the lines of a 1-on-1 betweem 2 people who are genuinely interested in finding the best available answer to a particular point of contention. Each particular topic may only be interesting to the 2 people involved, but at least they'd have a "neutral corner" in which to drop all hidden agendas and together figure out what's up.
Is that possible here, or am I just whistling Dixie?
I'm thinking...
That debate seems very well-thought out, mutually respectful and loaded with evidence. On Ratz. Somebody divide by 0 or something? 