Well I can answer why I used to disbelieve anthropogenic global warming. Here in the UK (idk about anywhere else so my answer is solely with respects to the UK) global warming is basically just a political bandwagon. Little to no real attempt is made to prevent it, it's just trotted out by politicians when they want a cheer they've not earned. If, in a Question Time debate, they're assailed particularly fiercely on an issue which they've mightily fucked up then you can bet your bottom buck that they're going to throw an issue like anthropogenic global warming into the debate to get people to forget about their misgivings. This is really the only time that the UK's general population really hears about AGW, except in the media which roundly bashes the theory, often outright lying about it (with exception of the hoighty toighty, more pretentious than the New Yorker, I'm an upper middle class pseudo-socialist willing to apologetically support any self-hating cause regardless of its validity 'The Guardian').
This is all compounded by the fact that the UK government (under Labour, it's still early days for the Conservatives so no comment as of yet) uses any old excuse it can fabricate to hit the public with taxes. So when the scientifically uninformed Brit sees the government plotting to hit us with green taxes (which it never actually demonstrates will do anything to avert global warming) and apologetically lamenting the wicked ways of the West whilst telling the developing East that it isn't allowed to develop anymore because it might make the world one degree warmer (but might also unbalance Western economies which have become reliant upon the economies of scale that can be achieved by relying upon the traditionally weak Eastern economies), they get suspicious.
You see, the problem isn't as New Scientist would have you believe. It isn't that there's a dastardly culture of denialism and hatred of science (as martyred and unique as this might allow New Scientist and its readers to feel; this kind of ridiculous supercilious skew is the reason I switched to Scientific American). It's that the British public have been conned one time too many and we've grown weary.
Since then I've thoroughly read the RealClimate and SkepticalScience websites and now agree that the anthropogenic explanation (and it's usually only this explanation, not GW itself which is in doubt) of global warming is the most feasible. But it really, really doesn't (and didn't, back when I was dubious) help matters that those who agree with AGW explanation usually do so on just as much a gut instinct as those who disagree yet pretentiously laud their supposed truth over everyone else. Scientists have good reason to believe in AGW, your average AGW supporting public member doesn't; it's just yet another bandwagon for the supercilious prick to support.
As for GM foods I've literally never read a single negative study in either the BMJ or the NEMJ. I also don't understand the claim that they cause cancer. By which mechanism is this supposed to occur?
Da Chi said:
Furthermore, don't flame me unless you know you are right.
Sorry Da Chi, he's right. In scientific lingo the word 'Theory' isn't the same as the dictionary definition for theory. To quote wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory said:
In the sciences, a scientific theory (also called an empirical theory) comprises a collection of concepts, including abstractions of observable phenomena expressed as quantifiable properties, together with rules (called scientific laws) that express relationships between observations of such concepts. A scientific theory is constructed to conform to available empirical data about such observations, and is put forth as a principle or body of principles for explaining a class of phenomena.
It's a far cry from the dictionary definition which has two separate definitions which support the use of the word theory as just a guess.
