If you're reading an article or a post and there's no data then you're almost wasting your time - but maybe it's entertaining.
Below is a post by a friend I found on Facebook. This is by a person with an engineering degree from Lehigh and a math wiz. Apparently this does note make you immune from bad arguments. Ad hominen arguments attack the person (the messenger) and not the theory (the message). I often see this used in the climate change and vaccination debates and often from both sides.
There are lots of opportunities to point weakness in climate change theory using data. You could show that models use parameters that are not reasonable or that certain feedbacks are not justified. I actually know of no weaknesses in climate models. And try to follow the debate as much as possible. The funny (or sad) thing about this post is the hypocrisy within. When you say "supposed experts" - you're using an ad hominem attack. One of the main proponents of human-induced climate change is Michael Mann and that guy is an actual expert. He gets a ton of hate mail and even has a book on it. However, the grand prize for getting attacked is Al Gore. Just go to the Weather Channel's Facebook page and look for any post on climate change. Thing is, Gore had nothing to do with climate change except for being a mouthpiece. He had nothing to do with the science so bringing him up is non sequitur for talking about the validity of climate models. Certainly, the politics of the people holding a particular scientific position has nothing to do with the validity of the position.
More broadly, when arguing about a scientific issue remember "Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur." Christopher Hitchens has put this as "What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence."
