 |
| Talk to the claw as the feathers ain't listening |
With the weight of scientific opinion - what he calls 'consensus' - behind him, Brian is unable to make a dent on the fixed conviction of his opponent who is so convinced of his own correctness that his ears are closed.
'NASA is falsifying the figures in an attempt to achieve a world domination'. Well, I suppose it is one-up on 'Europe/Germany is intent on creating a European super-state'.
Debate is such an old-fashioned and blunt weapon for such discussions. Malcolm Roberts uses the well-known domination-technique of the playground bully: 'if this [insert assertion plucked from the blue] is true then ...' Unless Brian has read the report/article in advance, he unable to respond coherently and is left looking as though he is generalising.
A proper 'debate' would involve the sharing of the cases for the prosecution and defence in advance so that individual points could be discussed more intelligently. It would not make as good television though.
The real tragedy is that Malcolm Roberts will go away from that meeting and continue to promote his ill-informed views and attempt to turn these into policy.
On one point he is right: that policy should be based on facts. You just have to have ears open to hear the facts and trust the experts. Oh, no, I forgot. we are all bored with experts aren't we.
Note: Richard Feynman was an American physicist of the C20 revered even more than Brian is today. To compare Brian disparagingly to Feynman is another of Malcolm Roberts' cheap shots.
