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He's got a single reference for one crackpot that wrote an absurd article. There are dozens of other tiny groups of crackpots on different subjects as well with
by droithomme 15y ago
He's got a single reference for one crackpot that wrote an absurd article. There are dozens of other tiny groups of crackpots on different subjects as well with opinions about a flat earth, a hollow inside out earth, the holocaust, and the moon landings as examples.
I have talked with moon landing deniers and holocaust deniers but in my life I've never met a single one of the dinosaur deniers. Dinosaur deniers are a very small group, on par with flat earthers. There are clearly many more people that deny the holocaust and the moon landing than there are that "don't believe in dinosaurs". This makes sense. Dinosaurs are difficult not to believe in given how many museums have skeletons available for viewing with bones that obviously don't belong to any currently alive species. Whereas with the moon landing, you have man made equipment in museums, but sure, to someone it could seem like it was all a big faked conspiracy to intimidate the Russians. That sort of at least sounds plausible even though it's not true, and few people actually personally know astronauts or rocket scientists. (I know several of both, but would still believe in the moon landing even if I didn't.)
So where am I going with this? His article is intellectually dishonest because he talks about a "whole group of extreme creationists who deny that dinosaurs existed", suggesting it is a large number of people, which it is absolutely not. He then tries to connect the whole thing to anthro global warming skeptics, which is a completely different kind of thing since you have real scientists and scientifically competent people asking reasonable questions, and people in politically entrenched positions refusing to respond with raw data. It's completely different from dinosaur skeptics who if we could find them would be easily discredited with a few days of museum visits.
- burgerbrain 15y agoTo be fair, if dinosaur deniers really are on par with flat earthers, then there very well may be a "whole group" of them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth_Society http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth_Society Religious people tend to cluster geographically/socially too, so the formation of actual "groups" would not surprise me.
- droithomme 15y agoYeah, although the FES itself (265 members according to the reference you cited) is not serious, it's more of a counter-cultural movement of people in on the joke. I meant instead to refer to people who really do believe the earth is flat, and suggest that those and dino skeptics are similarly sized populations. I wouldn't be surprised if there were 265 true dinosaur skeptics globally since it takes all kinds. Interestingly, many people in many primitive cultures won't be among the skeptics since many tribal people have either seen dinosaurs or know those who have. (Mokele Mbembe)
- burgerbrain 15y agoEh, if you say so. They seem sincerely crazy to me.