Comment on Open Thread, July 1-15, 2013

Thu, 04 Jul 2013 21:38:38 GMT

I've experimented with repersonalizing arguments: instead of challenging someone else for holding a belief, I direct the challenge at myself by putting their argument in my own mouth and saying what contrary evidence prevents me from believing it.

Someone else: You know that global warming business is a load of rubbish, right? Isn't real.

Me: That's not obvious to me. There are records of global average surface temperatures going back 150 years or so.

Someone else: Well, they can't know what the temperature was like before then.

Me: I'm sometimes inclined to think so, but then I'd have to contend with the variety of records based on tree rings, ice cores, and boreholes which go back centuries or millennia.

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