I'm looking for some advice and assistance. If anybody can offer any, I'd be grateful to receive it.
A few years ago I had a number of internet conversations with Young Earth Creationists, and was struck by the way they exhibited what appeared to be an extreme conviction. I'd offer evidence and facts, but they'd find a way to dismiss it. I'd talk about fossils, radiocarbon dating, rock strata, the half-life of radioactive isotopes, and evolution in progress as demonstrated by skinks, sea-lions, finches, et cetera. But there always some facile rather dishonest reason why it simply didn't count. Thus they could cling to their current viewpoint, even though there was no evidence to support it, regardless of any logical argument. I ended up thinking it was as if these guys had been hypnotised, and were incapable of independent thought. I even started to wonder a little about the nature of consciousness.
That was then, this is now. And I find I'm having similar problems with physicists. I'm a systems analyst by trade, with a degree in computer science, very logical, very empirical, and very rational. I'm also an unaffiliated amateur physicist specialising in relativity. I find myself in conversations with for example string theorists who appear to exhibit the same sort of utter conviction as YECs, believing unswervingly in the existence of ten-dimensional branes for which we have no evidence whatsover. Others involved in Quantum Field Theory are adamant that we live in a multiverse, others are adamant that time travel is possible. I offer strong evidence and argument to counter these concepts, referring back to Einstein and others such as Feynman, Dirac, and even Newton. But it's as if the people I'm talking to are simply not listening, as if "Morton's Demon" is sitting on their shoulder refusing to admit any information that challenges their current ideas.
Is there anybody here perhaps with experience of hypnosis who call tell me how I can "snap my fingers" and get these guys to wake up and enagage in rational discussion? PS: I don't find there's any difficulties talking face to face.
A few years ago I had a number of internet conversations with Young Earth Creationists, and was struck by the way they exhibited what appeared to be an extreme conviction. I'd offer evidence and facts, but they'd find a way to dismiss it. I'd talk about fossils, radiocarbon dating, rock strata, the half-life of radioactive isotopes, and evolution in progress as demonstrated by skinks, sea-lions, finches, et cetera. But there always some facile rather dishonest reason why it simply didn't count. Thus they could cling to their current viewpoint, even though there was no evidence to support it, regardless of any logical argument. I ended up thinking it was as if these guys had been hypnotised, and were incapable of independent thought. I even started to wonder a little about the nature of consciousness.
That was then, this is now. And I find I'm having similar problems with physicists. I'm a systems analyst by trade, with a degree in computer science, very logical, very empirical, and very rational. I'm also an unaffiliated amateur physicist specialising in relativity. I find myself in conversations with for example string theorists who appear to exhibit the same sort of utter conviction as YECs, believing unswervingly in the existence of ten-dimensional branes for which we have no evidence whatsover. Others involved in Quantum Field Theory are adamant that we live in a multiverse, others are adamant that time travel is possible. I offer strong evidence and argument to counter these concepts, referring back to Einstein and others such as Feynman, Dirac, and even Newton. But it's as if the people I'm talking to are simply not listening, as if "Morton's Demon" is sitting on their shoulder refusing to admit any information that challenges their current ideas.
Is there anybody here perhaps with experience of hypnosis who call tell me how I can "snap my fingers" and get these guys to wake up and enagage in rational discussion? PS: I don't find there's any difficulties talking face to face.