The current debate on health care is confusing. I focus on five central issues. The debate would be improved if these specifics were in the forefront. My points are, (1) heath in the US is more a product of lifestyle than the care system, (2) insurance company profits are a trivial part of health care costs, (3) justified changes in insurance regulations do not require the much large health care package, (4) a person will not be able to keep their present health insurance if employers drop the option, and (5) critical details of the new system are not disclosed.

There is a religious doctrine of Young Earth Creationism (YEC), whereby some people believe that the Bible says that the earth was literally created about 6,000 years ago. I am not arguing that that doctrine is necessarily false. I am arguing that if it is true, then when God created the earth he put in place a vast amount of evidence that the earth is many millions of years old. Moreover, the evidence is well coordinated, in that diverse evidence points to a consistent time line for events in the earth’s history. The evidence cannot be explained by scientists having made just a few key mistakes.

“Look at that! Things like that don’t just happen. There must be something behind it, and I’ll tell you what it is.” This type of argument is called the Argument from Incredulity. This type of argument may be valid for provoking a further look, but it is never conclusive. Often a further look reveals fundamental errors in supposing just how unlikely the event actual is.

What I want from news commentary are ideas, either new facts or new ways of looking at facts that explain why events unfolded as they did. Hannity and Colmes succeeds at doing that through the guests they have on the show. Neither host contributes as much as they could to the process. Hannity is too often a preacher delivering a limited number of canned sermons. Colmes listens to what guests have to say and responds to it, but often fails to advance the subject by analyzing what was said.

Voting is a right, but not an unconstrained one. The right to vote is not granted to those under the age of eighteen. That age limitation shows that voting rights may be restricted when there is reason to doubt the potential voter’s good judgment. Resident aliens are excluded from voting on the grounds that their interests are not necessarily coincident with the interests of ordinary citizens. Convicted felons are another class of citizens whose judgment is reasonably called into question. The interests of convicted felons are likely to be contrary to the interests of citizens as a whole, who want to be protected from criminals.

Most issues are complex. A fundamental of spin is to selectively consider the elements of the issue, ignoring the aspects that are not favorable to the conclusion the spin merchant favors. … A good exercise in unraveling spin is to map out an issue explicitly in spreadsheet style.

This question appears periodically in many forms. If you favor strict gun controls, should you be packing heat? The answer is that if a certain policy is set in law, it is appropriate to act in accord with the current policy, while at the same time advocating a change in policy.

Most people, myself included, believe conspiracy theories like the 9/11 conspiracy are ridiculous. But if they are ridiculous, why isn’t it easy to prove to anyone that they are ridiculous? If one knew what the problems were in proving it, perhaps more plausible suppositions could be easily disproved. Here are some ground rules for arguing far-fetched contentions.

Creationism postulates that only a more complex entity can create a complex system. Since living organism are complex systems, there must therefore be a Creator that is more complex. Creationists argue that the theory is testable.

Ignoring questions in a debate is both bad form and contrary to the goal of getting at the truth. Failing to respond is taken as an admission that you don’t know the answer or that don’t want to go on record as admitting something that may weaken your case. However, some questions do not admit to straight answers. Here is a list of nine responses, straightforward and otherwise.

“All my opponents do is rant while I provide careful analysis.” Detect any spin in that statement? Spin is an attempt to stress a conclusion through selective use of words or topics. A convenient table summarizes gives spin translations.