"Calculating the global warming catastrophe: Scientists agree that we're hurtling toward disaster..."

"The threat of catastrophic global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people"

People yell and scream at each other, pointing out unsavory motives. If this were a debate as to whether Star Wars is better than Star Trek, OK, fine. But somewhere in this discussion is -- or should be -- observations about the natural world, emperical truths, things that can measured. Emperical truths are things that mortal political enemies should be able to agree on. Granted, the future is not an emperical truth, and how to prepare for the future is a political decision, not a scientific one, but observations surely provide the most effective basis for such preparations.

If rants remain the general level of discourse, then we're probably doomed.

How do you find out what is true? I submit that what is verifiably true is not to be found in either The National Review or the Huffington Post. There you'll find interpretations, conclusions, and of course rants. Not the truth. Not the raw observation shorn of interpretation.

I presume that you are already quite familiar with finding information through the internet -- Google, Wikipedia, etc -- and there's nothing wrong with these resources. I use them many times a day. But they only get you so far. In general, you get a synopsis of what is some people think is known, as you would from a mini-textbook. The overview is a good starting place, but don't mistake it for the truth. At their best, web pages give you links to research articles from which you can understand the limitations of the generalization that appear on the pages. Wikipedia is sometimes good at doing this (here's an example). Usually, however, you just get bald, unsupported statements (here's an example). It really doesn't matter who wrote the bald statement (the previous example is on the National Institutes of Health web page), they're still bald.

One thing you'll learn from your first tour, What is a Gene, is that text books and web pages are quite limited. There's no replacement for doing experiments or reading about the experiments done by others. In general, you will need to be satisfied with the latter: how do you find accounts of experiments? Some of you have read research articles, and some have not. Of those who have, some have found the articles themselves, and some have had the articles given to them. For the latter, the days when people give you useful articles to read will soon be over, and if you don't know how to find scientific information on your own, you'll soon be helpless, victim to whatever anyone wants to feed you on the web.

This must not be allowed to happen. You need to learn how to find research articles on your own.

It doesn't matter that you may never do bioinformatics again.
It doesn't matter that you may spend the rest of your days selling handkerchiefs at Target.
Even so, you got to know this. You got to be able to find truth when you need it.