muso wrote on Oct 23
rd, 2013 at 8:14am:
Well I'm back, but I see nothing has changed. Is it really worth arguing against the true faithful who can just about master basic arithmetic but have absolutely no grasp of basic atmospheric science?
Probably not. The best we can do is point out the inconsistencies in their arguments. Of course, they will not understand themselves, but those reading just might.
It's been said many times:
A fool is certain; an ignorant fool, absolutely so.
The more a wise man learns, the more he comes to appreciate how much he doesn't know.
The more I learn, the more I realise how little I know.
It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so.
The first, I saw on a railway cutting in Sydney, some time in the 1970s, the second is Confucian and the last is from Will Rogers. The source of the penultimate escapes me.
Committed denialists, who often misrepresent themselves as sceptics, are by and large lost causes. Innocent bystanders (by which I don't mean the rabid right-winger who uses that handle in this forum) need protection from them. The best we can offer is truth.