Yep, and I am quite sure that anyone reading it, who disagrees somehow with the results of the scientific study, experienced the exact same brain event.
This is what happens when somebody is faced with facts that don’t agree with their preconceived world view. It’s not like they make a choice to ignore the facts, something happens in the brain, and the facts actually do not matter. This is exactly why facts in an argument don’t matter.
The more important and emotionally charged the issue, the less facts will matter. Recognizing this when it happens to us, is almost impossible. It is a rare soul that will simply change his mind when new evidence comes to light. It’s not a choice, there is something that happens in the brain, and the facts never even make it in to the part of the brain that examines facts.
Understanding this is probably one of the most important things a human being can achieve.
You are declaring that you “killed” a thread after a mere four hours?
That looks like trolling, to me, (particularly when your “observations” clearly describe your posts as much as anyone’s).
You are on thin ice with that behavior.
Though I like the above definition of dogma, I think it also carries the connotation that the dogma must be believe without explanation. For example, most Christian churches require it’s members to believe in the virgin birth or the 6,000 year old Earth. It doesn’t matter what science says, one has to believe these things or they’re not Christians. Dogma cannot be falsified.
Axioms generally are clearly stated as assumptions, and explanations can be had. They used as the foundation of a logical argument. Some examples of axioms are that the number zero is unique as the additive identity or that multiplication is associative. Axioms can be falsified through counter-examples.
Arguing dogma is the death penalty in some places of the world, arguing axioms is not. However, arguing either is usually a waste of time.
Another thing to avoid when trying to change other people’s minds is false statements like ‘most Christian churches require their members to believe in a 6000 year old universe’.
More difficult is changing your own mind. I’ll withdraw the word “most” per this article in Wikipedia. Interesting they use the word “pseudoscience”, which by axiom is always refuted by real science.
Dogma pretty much can’t be argued against.
If you tell liberals, “You say *your *side is right, but conservatives say *their *side is right,” 99% of the time, the liberal response will be to the effect of, “Yes, conservatives *claim *to be right, but our side, the liberal side, is the side that truly *is *right.”
Same for the conservatives. If you tell conservatives, “You say *your *side is right, but liberals say *their *side is right,” 99% of the time, the conservative response will be to the effect of, “Yes, liberals *claim *to be right, but our side, the conservative side, is the side that truly *is *right.”
Yet another application of the imaginary “Universal Equality Law” applied by a fence sitter, in which it is claimed without any evidence that both sides do something pretty much equally when it comes to some issue or another. The truth of the matter is a bit more complex, depending on which particular issue is being discussed, and sometimes one side does rely more on passion and rhetoric than fact than the other.
Also, sometimes there is an asymmetry in willingness to grant good intentions to the other side.
One side might say, “They’re evil! They’re deliberately lying!” The other side might, in contrast, say, “Well, they’re wrong, of course, but I guess I can understand why they believe what they do.”
On the other hand, one of the sides might actually be lying, in which case honorably presuming them to be wrong but in good faith is, itself, wrong.
One kind of error is in wrongly attributing dishonesty to the opposing point of view. But another kind of error is in wrongly attributing decency and integrity to the opposing point of view.
Most liberals and most conservatives should be given the presumption of innocence. But some groups, like Fox News or the Creationist movement, are rotten inside, and deliberately practice dishonesty in debate.
As Czarcasm notes, you can’t always presume upon a symmetry of honest disagreement. But you should start by presuming honesty in the opposition, and not move on to the dismissal of their honesty until it’s really well proven.
As mentioned above, it might be impossible to impose the light upon the darkened dogmatists. And it isn’t even really important to do so.
Better to spend one’s efforts preaching to the choir, convert the already-converted to your way of thinking, and convince them in large numbers to get out and vote!
You can’t. But you can work up nice healthy righteous outrage trying.
If your intent is to change their minds, then you’re going to have to get them to work it out for themselves. The Socratic method is a place to start.
However, there is a core value here that must not be left out if you are to have any hope for success (ironic that we’re in Great Debates for this): Your position can’t be just, “What do I have to say to change your mind?” You have to be willing to fully engage, really listening to the other side, accepting the possibility that it might be YOU that ends up changing a belief. Easy to say…
As long as you’re telling me how I’m wrong, I’m not listening. However, if we’re working it through together, trying to put two minds into resolving a tricky question, well, now I’m at least listening to what you’re saying.
Okay, I’m trying, but I already know that you’re dead wrong.
This is why one of my favored debate techniques is to find mutually agreed-upon regions of debate that both sides reject. e.g., when talking about tax rates, almost everyone understands that tax rates can’t be 100%, and can’t be 0%. Everyone agrees that the end-points of the Laffer Curve are not viable.
When discussing abortion, it helps if both sides can agree that contraception is good, because it reduces the number of abortions. Not everyone is willing even to agree to that…but many are, and thus a small step is taken in the direction of mutual agreement.
“When you eliminate the impossible…” you begin to define the broadest outlines of what might be acceptable to all.
“Can’t we all agree, at very least, that [certain highly extreme ideas] are of no value to us…” is, in my opinion, a very good opening move when seeking consensus.