Binary Morons

Folks in the UK were asked if they agreed or disagreed with the statement “human activity is causing climate change.”

Variably the Guardian has used these numbers to argue that those fuckwit (that’s me, para-adjectiving) Brexit supporters, on the subject of some generic climate change hypothesis, are twice as likely to disbelieve / distrust / doubt / oppose / not support / think (that it’s wrong).

It never occurred to the Guardian that disagreement with the statement could have be a sign of a rational person that knew they didn’t have enough data, training, skills or interest to properly agree with the tricky and under-defined proposition, and hence, with no other option available, were forced to disagree.

Which just shows why you shouldn’t answer a binary (yes/no) question. Nor should you ask one!

Any forced binary answer to a complex question may be used by those harboring irrational emotions (and that also constructed the binarised complex question) in order to accuse you of the same.