# Facts won't change your mind about anything **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 19, 2015, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293 "2015-01-19T17:29:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 14
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2015, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/261 "2015-02-15T13:47:33Z")
Q.E.D. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2015, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/262 "2015-02-15T14:33:02Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > you attempted to use the research conclusions to attack/discredit your opponents in a different debate, Unless it’s in a general way, and based on behavior exhibited, I never attack or discredit anyone, because there is no way to actually know if somebody is anything other than wrong about something. In other words, I attack an argument, or a claim, not the person repeating it. Explaining why somebody is wrong on the internet is not attacking the person, nor is pointing out their errors an attempt to discredit the person. In fact, based on what little I know of climate matters, due to the massive amount of controversy, and really bad information from all sides, it would be wrong to accuse somebody of deliberately repeating bad information. This would assume their intent, something that can’t actually be known, so claiming I know it is an error. It’s why these opinion based arguments, where people assume somebody is saying something for a reason other than being factual, are so absurd. It assumes intent, and since we can’t actually know that, it’s a fallacy to argue like that. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2015, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/263 "2015-02-15T14:40:12Z")
Apparently **FXMastermind** wanted to have the exact same discussion that was moved to The Pit but at a place where we were not allowed to call him a fucking idiot. However there is no rule in this forum from simply saying: FXMastermind, you’re wrong. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2015, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/264 "2015-02-15T14:40:16Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > I never thought of forest fires. It’s a pretty good example of a feedback loop. Of course it might be the forest fires themselves that could be a feedback loop, the paper was certainly not clear about it. In general it was saying (and I wish I had bookmarked it now) that “warming” caused more fires, which caused more CO2, which caused more warming, which caused more fires, which caused more CO2. A feedback loop. What part of that is the driver? And what part is the feedback? It’s exactly the same with oceans and CO2 and warming. If “warming” leads to more CO2 from the oceans, which leads to more warming, which leads to more CO2, then it is a feedback loop. But what’s the driver and what is the feedback? ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2015, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/265 "2015-02-15T14:43:01Z")
> [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](#): > > Apparently **FXMastermind** wanted to have the exact same discussion that was moved to The Pit but at a place where we were not allowed to call him a fucking idiot. There’s exactly what I was talking about. Because we can’t actually know “why” somebody types something out, even if they state “why” they did, assuming we know, and basing our argument on that, is a fallacy. It seems to be the most common one of all online, in which both facts and opinions don’t seem to matter. because that argument is based on “feelings”, which is an entirely different subject. People seem to “feel” strongly about things, and I would guess most people wouldn’t even dispute that. It’s our rampant ability to let our feelings get in the way of knowing what is actually happening, that started the scientific method. It’s also probably why some people hate science, because it seems to be unfeeling, and cares more about reality, than how you feel about reality. Science is an unfeeling bitch, and people don’t like it. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2015, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/266 "2015-02-15T15:01:49Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > Unless it’s in a general way, and based on behavior exhibited, I never attack or discredit anyone, because there is no way to actually know if somebody is anything other than wrong about something. In other words, I attack an argument, or a claim, not the person repeating it. Not really, scientists have been called “nobodies” by you in the past, their conclusions ignored repeatedly like the ones made my Cohen and others. And people that you follow like Christopher Booker accuse scientists of fraud with misleading evidence. > [@FXMastermind](#): > > Explaining why somebody is wrong on the internet is not attacking the person, nor is pointing out their errors an attempt to discredit the person. In fact, based on what little I know of climate matters, due to the massive amount of controversy, and really bad information from all sides, it would be wrong to accuse somebody of deliberately repeating bad information. As Phil Platt would say with authority: > **[No, climate scientists are not manipulating their data](https://grist.org/climate-energy/no-climate-scientists-are-not-manipulating-their-data/)** > > Some climate deniers say scientists are skewing data to show a warming planet. Here's why they're wrong. > [@](#): > > As you can see, there’s virtually no difference. As long as the measurements are processed properly they show what we know, what we’ve known, for quite some time: The world is warming up, and it’s warming up rapidly. > > So, far from being “the biggest science scandal ever,” this isn’t even a scandal at all, and is in fact how science works. You can’t just take raw data off a detector and claim it’s real; if you do so, then at best you’d be fooling yourself, and at worst you’d be trying to fool others. And that’s certainly not how science works. Saying then that the skeptical researchers at Berkeley are “full of shit” is not really showing them wrong at all, in fact for all that you claim in this message board there is no evidence shown by you to declare that they got it wrong regarding the temperature record. Being an skeptic doesn’t mean that you have to ignore the evidence or the facts: (Richard Muller: I Was Wrong on Climate Change) > [@FXMastermind](#): > > This would assume their intent, something that can’t actually be known, so claiming I know it is an error. It’s why these opinion based arguments, where people assume somebody is saying something for a reason other than being factual, are so absurd. It assumes intent, and since we can’t actually know that, it’s a fallacy to argue like that. The problem is that we know already that the preponderance of evidence is that your sources are wrong, and even charlatans, the problem is also to continue to rely on their accusations when their misleading or wrong ideas are known already. > **[The Patron Saint of Charlatans](https://www.monbiot.com/2008/09/23/the-patron-saint-of-charlatans/)** > > How does Christopher Booker get away with it? By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 23rd September 2008 Does Moore’s Law now apply to human civilisation? In 1965 Gordon Moore predicted that the density of transistors on integrated circuits... > [@](#): > > Two years ago, John Bridle’s misleading CV and dodgy record were exposed by the BBC’s You and Yours programme(19). So the BBC immediately became part of the conspiracy: in Booker’s words “a concerted move by the powerful ‘anti-asbestos lobby’ to silence Bridle”(20). He suggested that the broadcasting regulator Ofcom would clear John Bridle’s name(21). In June this year it threw out Bridle’s complaint and published evidence even more damning than that contained in the programme(22). So has Booker changed the way he sees “Britain’s leading practical asbestos expert”? Far from it. He tells me that “my view of Ofcom has plummeted”(23): it too has joined the conspiracy. > > **We are not talking about trivia here. This is a matter of life and death. How many people might have been exposed to dangerous levels of asbestos dust as a result of reading and believing Mr Booker’s columns? > \*\* > For several years Booker has been waging a similar war against “warmist alarmists”, by which he means climate scientists. Nine days ago, for example, he attacked Michael Mann for publishing a paper which shows (alongside scores of other studies) that global temperatures do indeed follow the famous hockey-stick pattern: a moderate long-term cooling trend terminating in a sudden upwards bend. Mann, Booker told his readers, had been “selective … in his new data, excluding anything which confirmed the Mediaeval Warming”(24). But Mann’s paper, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, uses every uncluttered high-resolution proxy temperature record in the public domain(25).** How did Booker trip up so badly? By using the claims of unqualified bloggers to refute peer-reviewed studies.\*\* > > **Under their guidance he routinely mistakes weather for climate and makes claims about the temperature record which bear no relation to the studies he cites. My favourite Booker column is the piece he wrote in February, titled “So it appears that Arctic ice isn’t vanishing after all.” In September 2007, he reported, “sea ice cover had shrunk to the lowest level ever recorded. But for some reason the warmists are less keen on the latest satellite findings, reported by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. … Its graph of northern hemisphere sea ice area, which shows the ice shrinking from 13,000 million sq km to just 4 million from the start of 2007 to October, also shows it now almost back to 13 million sq km.”(26) To reinforce this point, he helpfully republished the graph, showing that the ice had indeed expanded between September and January. The Sunday Telegraph continues to employ a man who cannot tell the difference between summer and winter.** ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2015, 3:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/267 "2015-02-15T15:24:18Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > There’s exactly what I was talking about. Because we can’t actually know “why” somebody types something out, even if they state “why” they did, assuming we know, and basing our argument on that, is a fallacy. And that is a fallacy when one looks at the evidence, we know that repeatedly the sources you and many contrarians rely on are wrong (and even skeptical researchers showed that already) or are misleading for a reason. [http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/11/28/meet-the-climate-denial-machine/191545](http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/11/28/meet-the-climate-denial-machine/191545) > [@](#): > > Despite the overwhelming consensus among climate experts that human activity is contributing to rising global temperatures, 66 percent of Americans incorrectly believe there is “a lot of disagreement among scientists about whether or not global warming is happening.” The conservative media has fueled this confusion by distorting scientific research, hyping faux-scandals, and giving voice to groups funded by industries that have a financial interest in blocking action on climate change. > [@](#): > > Anthony Watts > > Anthony Watts, a former television weatherman and climate skeptic who believes the U.S. temperature record is “unreliable,” runs the blog Watts Up With That. The blog features the fringe views of climate misinformers like Christopher Monckton and Fred Singer as guest authors and conservative media have previously seized on its misleading content. > > In 2009, Watts was a driving force behind the controversy over leaked “Climategate” emails. In September 2012, he was at the center of a controversial PBS segment that aired his views as a “counterbalance” to climate experts without mentioning his ties to the industry-funded Heartland Institute. Watts was paid by the Heartland Institute for his work on temperature stations and is a regular speaker at Heartland conferences. > **[Anything to declare, Mr Booker? We need transparency about Heartland | George...](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/georgemonbiot/2012/feb/24/christopher-booker-heartland-climate)** > > George Monbiot: You'd hope that, as Private Eye's founding editor, Christopher Booker would declare hospitality received from the Heartland Institute > [@](#): > > **Anything to declare, Mr Booker? We need transparency about Heartland** > [@](#): > > The publication which has done most in the UK to expose such conflicts of interest is a magazine called Private Eye, which performs a crucial public service by revealing what we should have known all along. It just happens that its founding editor, 50 years ago, was a certain Christopher Booker, with whom you are by now doubtless familiar. > > So one might have expected that he of all people would be aware of the importance of declaring an interest, especially when that interest potentially conflicts with a report he has written. > > When the Heartland Institute story broke, I remembered that in 2009 Mr Booker flew to New York to speak at a Heartland Institute conference. He then lavishly praised the conference in his Telegraph column. But not a word did he say about whether he was paid by the Heartland Institute to speak and what hospitality he might have received. > > Now that the documents, if authentic, show that the institute has been funded among others by fossil fuel and tobacco companies, as well as the ubiquitous Charles Koch, I thought this would be a good moment to broach the issue. On Thursday, I phoned my old friend and asked him whether he was paid to attend. After some blustering and expressions of outrage that I would even consider asking such a question, he conceded that he had in fact received an honorarium of $1,000 from the Heartland Institute, and that it had also paid his airfare and hotel bill. > > So why did he not declare these interests when he wrote his glowing article about the Heartland Institute’s conference? > > He replied: “How the hell can you accuse me of having undisclosed interests when I haven’t hidden a thing?” > > I pointed out that Private Eye takes a rather different attitude. > > “I don’t believe that you’re writing this,” he replied. “The amount of money was so unimportant. It all vanished in a week. Like many other people in this world, I am under no obligation to declare an interest when it is not strictly relevant to the matter in hand.” > > “But this was strictly relevant to the matter in hand,” I said. > > At this point, with characteristic understatement, he started comparing me to the Gestapo and the Stasi. Perhaps he now sees the magazine he founded in the same light. We know that you remain ignorant of all this, and what we know at least is that you are wrong. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2015, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/268 "2015-02-15T19:18:49Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > Unless it’s in a general way, and based on behavior exhibited, I never attack or discredit anyone, because there is no way to actually know if somebody is anything other than wrong about something. In other words, I attack an argument, or a claim, not the person repeating it. :rolleyes: Fine. Modify my statement to “_you attempted to use the research conclusions to attack/discredit your opponents’ positions in a different debate_.” My observation remains true. The whole point of this thread was to pretend that you had, in some fashion, achieved a state of perfect knowledge and your opinions were ruled solely by facts while others were blinded by their preconceived notions. And my conclusion remains true: you are just as blinded by the same problem and your inability to recognize (or, at least, admit) that situation is utterly ironic. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_stamos_left_ear/32/3198_2.png) [@John\_Stamos\_Left\_Ear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Stamos_Left_Ear)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2015, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/269 "2015-02-15T19:20:36Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > And my conclusion remains true: you are just as blinded by the same problem and your inability to recognize (or, at least, admit) that situation is utterly ironic. They have a name for it too. [It’s on the tip of my tongue…](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect) ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2015, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/270 "2015-02-15T19:27:18Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > Explaining why somebody is wrong on the internet is not attacking the person, nor is pointing out their errors an attempt to discredit the person. In fact, based on what little I know of climate matters, due to the massive amount of controversy, and really bad information from all sides, it would be wrong to accuse somebody of deliberately repeating bad information. This would assume their intent, something that can’t actually be known, so claiming I know it is an error. It’s why these opinion based arguments, where people assume somebody is saying something for a reason other than being factual, are so absurd. It assumes intent, and since we can’t actually know that, it’s a fallacy to argue like that. And, of course, this whole paragraph is irrelevant to what I posted. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2015, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/271 "2015-02-16T21:10:01Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > How about massive walls of opinions? Ever observed anyone simply change their mind after being “presented” with an endless wall of text? > > No, those tend to be counterproductive. People feel like they’re being blitzkrieged, and they don’t like it. It seems to be more effective to work on one point at a time, with patience and as much courtesy as possible. People are far more open to a respectful debate than to the other kind. Generally true, of course, but the necessary assumption here is that the reader is actually interested in having a serious discussion. If he isn’t, it really doesn’t matter how you approach it. Case in point, for example, these statements by **FX** … The problem is, when people make things up, like “Water vapor is a feedback and not a forcing”, there isn’t any evidence that such a statement exists, except where somebody made it up. You won’t find it in a textbook, or any scientific paper, or even on a real climate science page. ([Link](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17030924&postcount=135)) water causes both warming and cooling, in all kinds of ways, but it is not a feedback ([Link](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17068419&postcount=1704)) When water vapor increases in the atmosphere it does not somehow make it warmer, which causes more water vapor, which causes warming, which causes more water vapor. That isn’t happening, does not happen. The climate would be unstable, the energy balance would constantly change, with the planet warming up. ([Link](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17068419&postcount=1704)) That nonsense was refuted at least three different times, [most recently here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18109181&postcount=218), with ample cites for the benefit of anyone who may have skipped out on high school science class or was otherwise inexplicably ignorant of the most basic facts about climate. Did it make a difference? Did we get a retraction? If we can’t get acknowledgment of even the most fundamental basics that are covered in science classes and basic textbooks, how are we supposed to have an intelligent discussion about more complex issues? More generally, here is how it usually works when dealing with climate denialists. If you provide brief, simple answers that are easy to understand, you are accused of “oversimplifying” and it is pointed out how complex the climate system is. You might also be accused of “meaningless generalities”. But if you provide a comprehensive technical description of some issue, covering all the bases, you are accused of authoring a “wall of text”. You get the Internet “TL;DR” phenomenon. A comprehensive technical post usually elicits a response from denialists something along these lines: “That was too long to read. But in my opinion, global warming is not proven, and we all know that scientists are in it for the money.” 😃 > [@FXMastermind](#): > > … based on what little I know of climate matters … And yet you have made several thousand posts on the topic, most of them factually wrong. And most of them stridently and assertively implying that one or another fundamental aspect of climate science is wrong – that, to use [your words](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18075219&postcount=136) – “… the entire theoretical framework of current consensus global warming theory, due to an enhanced greenhouse effect, from increasing CO2, might be completely wrong” – with the clear implication that it actually is, in fact, completely wrong. It’s a persistent theme in your posts, as in [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17166658&postcount=561) (“If so, then the AGW theory is completely wrong.”) or [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17171076&postcount=591) (“But it’s not AGW as the current theory and models predicts.”). And then of course we get you claiming that “the ‘science’ is agenda driven, not evidence based” ([link)](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17122677&postcount=27) and your absolutely priceless claim that the IPCC is “woo woo science” ([link](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=17815999&postcount=383)). Yet all these bogus arguments are wrapped up in claims of alleged respect for “facts” and “science”, which is what makes this thread so deeply ironic, as a number of astute posters have already noted. You mention the question of “intent”, and that “it would be wrong to accuse somebody of deliberately repeating bad information.” I am making no judgments about “intent”. I’m describing what I’m seeing. I have rarely but occasionally encountered knowledgeable climate “skeptics” capable of making at least superficially substantive arguments for the denialist side, like for instance criticizing Mann’s temperature reconstructions by attacking his use of decentered principal component analysis. The quality of the better arguments isn’t that they’re right or that they prevail (they usually turn out either to be wrong or irrelevant) – the quality of the better arguments is that they make the discussion interesting and possibly informative and I might emerge from them having learned something new, and hopefully so have the readers. No offense, **FX** , but most of your arguments do not even remotely rise to that level, and many of them are just plain patent nonsense – all you do is frustrate many of us with the kinds of things I quoted in the first part of this response. Which, again, is why this thread is so ironic. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2015, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/272 "2015-02-16T22:27:52Z")
nm ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2015, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/273 "2015-02-16T22:31:40Z")
Irrelevant too. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2015, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/274 "2015-02-16T22:39:03Z")
This probably bears repeating: > [@FXMastermind](#): > > I know exactly what I mean by my terms, and offer clear definitions and links to sources. When YOU ask a question about something, it’s on you to explain what you are asking about. This blanket refusal to simply state your case, when asked directly, seems to be a hallmark of the disaster side of the debate. Obviously I can do the heavy lifting, and describe the entire list of issues at the heart of the debate, I’ve done it multiple times. It doesn’t make any difference. Facts don’t seem to matter at all. Not even a little bit. It doesn’t cost me anything to argue for global warming, and I have stated clearly multiple times that science tells us that we are increasing the CO2 levels, along with other vast changes to the world. And these things will, and are, changing the biosphere, the land, rivers, forests, oceans and atmosphere. The most egregious opponents are those that dismiss the very idea itself, that we can in any way alter our world with our actions. This is pure denial, the actual denial-ism that is an affront to the scientific mind. I’ve read those who deny that CO2 even causes any greenhouse effect, which is the most base level of denial. These people actually believe no matter how much CO2 we add to the mix, it won’t change anything. Or it will be so tiny we can’t measure it. That seems like pure denial, they don’t even want any study of the matter, which is indeed like the same problems with tobacco, coal, mercury, lead, arsenic, or Methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE). MTBE is a prime example of a known carcinogen being used when the evidence was overwhelming that it was very bad news for humans and everything else. The groundwater contamination from it is truly hideous. That it was the replacement for lead is just horrific irony, since lead wasn’t nearly as bad for most of us as it’s replacement. But none of those facts has caused it to be banned. It’s still used, it’s like so many other solvents and chemicals and other compounds, which the facts are not really in dispute. But the facts don’t run the show. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2015, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/275 "2015-02-16T22:45:58Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > Facts don’t seem to matter at all. Not even a little bit. Of course it does, by the preponderance of evidence it is clear that your sources are wrong or clueless. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2015, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/276 "2015-02-16T22:57:30Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > Obviously I can do the heavy lifting, and describe the entire list of issues at the heart of the debate, I’ve done it multiple times. It doesn’t make any difference. You mean this kind of “heavy lifting”? … > [@FXMastermind](#): > > … just yesterday while looking for a source that would say “water vapor is a feedback loop”, which of course I could not find … [How hard did you look](http://lmgtfy.com/?q=water+vapor+feedback+loop)? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2015, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/277 "2015-03-27T15:23:07Z")
Pretty hard, which is why I actually found the original source of the concept, that any warming for any reason, of the planet, will result in drastic warming, due to a [water vapor positive feedback effect](https://knowledgedrift.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/poles-regulate-earth-temperature-data-suggests/). [The data shows this doesn’t actually happen](http://eos.atmos.washington.edu/erbe/), which we already know, and even you explained it. In reality water vapor acts to moderate temperatures, and an increase in water vapor, for any reason, results in cooling in the larger picture. Especially when it results in a strong negative feedback, the theoretical mechanism Cohen and others use to explain the cooling trends we know are happening for NH winters. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2015, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/278 "2015-03-27T16:25:52Z")
> [@FXMastermind](#): > > Pretty hard, which is why I actually found the original source of the concept, that any warming for any reason, of the planet, will result in drastic warming, due to a [water vapor positive feedback effect](https://knowledgedrift.wordpress.com/2010/01/20/poles-regulate-earth-temperature-data-suggests/). From a denialist site, not very good pickings out there indeed, as usual in sites like that one they continue to disparage things like the hockey stick, of curse I already linked to a presentation from one of the authors of the latest Cohen paper to show that indeed [they do rely on past theories like what water vapour will and does influence the Arctic amplification](http://ic3.cat/wikicfu/img_auth.php/Walsh_Global_Planetary_Change.pdf). and they do rely on data like the ones reported by Mann. This is not a new theory nor are the Arctic scientists like Cohen refuting the previous one, they use the previous one to modify what will happen in winters in a warming world. The bottom line is that the positive feedback of water vapour is observed and also used by Cohen and others to to plug to the observed global temperature increase, that increases the observed Arctic amplification to explain why we are getting extreme cold winter in some areas of the mid latitudes. And as usual the good data is only picked to show in this case just the differences in a year. Underwhelming reply as usual. ---
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2015, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/279 "2015-04-05T16:16:48Z")
For anyone interested in the problem with facts not making a difference, the Scott Adams vs the SGU is priceless, especially since we have a Dilbert strip about it as well. And of course a virtual meltdown on the SGU world over it. It starts with this > [@](#): > > Science isn’t about being right every time, or even most of the time. It is about being more right over time and fixing what it got wrong. So how is a common citizen supposed to know when science is “done” and when it is halfway to done which is the same as being wrong? > > You can’t tell. And if any scientist says you should be able to tell when science is “done” on a topic, please show me the data indicating that people have psychic powers. > > So maybe we should stop scoffing at people who don’t trust science and ask ourselves why. Ignorance might be part of the problem. But I think the bigger issue is that science is a “mostly wrong” situation by design that is intended to become more right over time. How do you make people trust a system that is designed to get wrong answers more often than right answers? And should we? > > I’m pro-science because the alternatives are worse. (Example: ISIS.) I’m sure most of you are on the same side. But can we stop being surprised when people don’t believe science? Humans can’t turn off pattern recognition. There’s a good reason trust in science is low. Science failed my generation on the topic of food and exercise the same way science failed my parents generation with cigarettes. [http://blog.dilbert.com/post/109880240641/sciences-biggest-fail#ixzz3WS5MRtw7](http://blog.dilbert.com/post/109880240641/sciences-biggest-fail#ixzz3WS5MRtw7) The skeptics get snarky and pissed. [http://www.theskepticsguide.org/podcast/sgu/502](http://www.theskepticsguide.org/podcast/sgu/502) Adams fires back [http://blog.dilbert.com/post/112326463991/skeptics-say-science-has-no-obligation-to](http://blog.dilbert.com/post/112326463991/skeptics-say-science-has-no-obligation-to) And a blog almost nobody reads goes nuclear > **[Scott Adams on Science and Nutrition - NeuroLogica Blog](https://theness.com/neurologicablog/scott-adams-on-science-and-nutrition/)** > > In a recent blog post, Dilbert writer Scott Adams wrote: What’s is science’s biggest fail of all time? I nominate everything about diet and fitness. Maybe science has the diet and fitness stuff mostly right by now. I hope so. But I thought the same... And while I refuse to link to it, Twitter explodes over it. Dilbert fans should get more than a few laughs. Humorless twits did not. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2015, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293/280 "2015-04-05T17:03:36Z")
> [@](#): > > **I’m on the side that says climate change, for example, is pretty much what science says it is because the scientific consensus is high.** But I realize half of my fellow-citizens disagree, based on pattern recognition. On one hand, the views of my fellow citizens might lead humanity to inaction on climate change and result in the extinction of humans. On the other hand, would I want to live in a world in which people stopped using pattern recognition to make decisions? > > Those are two bad choices. > > Scott Adams So yeah, I think it will be amusing and funny to see **FXMastermind** tossing Adams under the bus by what he will continue to insist, **FXmastermind** will claim that Adams is still with him. Just as it is clear that Cohen supports the main theories about what is causing the current warming (and he uses then the warming that is happening in the Arctic and applies it to his theory about extreme winters in some areas of the world), it is clear that even here the help FX expects is not there or even with Scott Adams. Just grasping at straws. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293.md?page=13) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/facts-wont-change-your-mind-about-anything/710293.md?page=15)