All this leaves us polarised and divided. Democracy itself is fragile – we share but one world, and if we cannot even agree on basic facts, how can we hope to find pragmatic solutions to the problems confronting us? The solution is to adopt the critical thinking central to the scientific method, where ideas are advanced and rigorously tested. Those that withstand critical examination are provisionally accepted, while those that do not are discarded, no matter how elegant they may be.
