Scientific Consensus vs. Dissent

"My thesis is that the criteria by which individuals are deemed qualified or unqualified to become professionals involve not just technical knowledge as is generally assumed, but also attitude—in particular, attitude toward working within an assigned political and ideological framework. I contend, for example, that all tests of technical knowledge, such as the Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) or the Law School Admission Test (LSAT), are at the same time tests of attitude and that the examinations used to assess professional qualification are no exception. I consider in detail how the neutral-looking technical questions on such examinations probe the candidate's attitude.

The qualifying attitude, I find, is an uncritical, subordinate one, which allows professionals to take their ideological lead from their employers and appropriately fine-tune the outlook that they bring to their work. The resulting professional is an obedient thinker, an intellectual property whom employers can trust to experiment, theorize, innovate and create safely within the confines of an assigned ideology. The political and intellectual timidity of today's most highly educated employees is no accident."
-Jeff Schmidt, Disciplined Minds

Another School Sucks Podcast on my resource list.  Expect to see more in the future, too, this is a very valuable resource.  This discussion sounds essentially like a discussion of how to use NVC in debates.  I am still skeptical as to whether NVC has any value in text-only conversations like those on facebook, but they make a decent case for giving it a shot.
They also discuss the nature of popular debates, and how they are all discussions of statist policy, even when they are billed as scientific debates.
And there's a good chunk of discussion concerning some very good self-help tools at the end.

http://schoolsucksproject.com/podcast-348-scientific-consensus-vs-dissent-part-4-why-am-i-here-and-what-am-i-trying-to-do/