[quote=Imperfectionist]
Alright, I think I understand... Um, give me an example of some of these contradictory attitudes, and I'll see what I can do to (perhaps) defend them.
[/quote]

Global Warming is the obvious choice. [url=http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2014/01/02/dark-money-funds-to-promote-global-warming-alarmism-dwarf-warming-denier-research/]Actual billions of dollars[/url] spent squashing [url=http://www.ijreview.com/2013/09/81299-mark-steyns-epic-rant-uns-ipcc-confesses-global-warming-15-years/]actual documentation[/url] to the contrary. [url=http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/06/26/2202141/anti-science-climate-denier-caucus-113th-congress-edition/]The heathens are marked and shamed.[/url] Point being, this sort of behavior is considered [i]totally okay[/i] as long as it's coming from 'the scientific community' instead of 'the church.' This is exactly the climate that produced the spanish inquisition, but we're just pretending that it's going to turn out swell this time around. Silly.

(note that in this example I'm pointing to the actual scientific community, but more generally I'm talking about the 'scientific community' that you have to put in quotation marks)