Battling Bloggospheres

DifferingPointsOfView
HonestConversationVille


Sometimes you get the feeling that the Bloggosphere is more polarized than a Van de Graaf generator.

Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, except that it so often seems like you can never have a decent discussion with someone who likes to hang out at the opposite pole.

A major reason for this, in my opinion, is that many folks at the opposite pole just won't listen to reason - particularly when it comes to the issue of talking points that have already been de-bunked by actual evidence.

I do realize, however, that the same could also be said about some of the folks that gravitate towards the pole of the sphere that I tend to hang out on.

But that issue, which is an important one, is not something I really want to get into today.

Instead, I would like to point you towards a post on childcare by someone from the opposite pole whose writings I have come to respect.

Now, please don't misunderstand me.

Sandy and I don't always agree. But she's honest and up front about her point of view and she is always willing to concede a point based on the evidence at her disposal.

To whit:

There are claims that the results of a long-term child care study released earlier this week (by the U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development) shows that children who attended pre-school day care had predictably bad behaviour by Grade six. I wrote a post about that study saying the results were inconclusive. (See the primary source here and here.)

If you surf the Internet, you will find that media outlets and a number of boggers (include BT) continue to make the "bad behavior if a child attends day care" claims. Those claims would be completely misleading, not because of anything the bloggers have written, but because of the way the authors of the study have described their results. I am going to put some of the official statements below and the reader will see what I mean....

If you are interested in this topic Sandy's original and her follow-up posts make for excellent and illuminating reading.

But even if you're not, I think it is very much worth knowing that there are folks on the other end of the political spectrum that are worth talking to in the bloggosphere.

Because, after all, if preaching to the converted is all we ever do, well, what's the use of that?

Thanks Sandy.

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Sidebar: I first became aware of Sandy's stuff as a result of my very small bloggorole in the Bains/Bolan affair. Specifically, after that thing got whirlitzered up in the mainstream(ish)media, many folks of a conservative bent came by to crow. Sandy did not (crow, I mean).

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