That's curious. I use exactly that attitude to discover new things in relation to oil exploration. None of them have been Earth shattering (pun intended), but they have cumulatively saved my customers tens of millions of dollars and earned my employer millions of dollars. Do you suppose that the attitude might actually have something going for it?
What was that attitude, by the way? Oh, yes. In part it was to seek out errors of fact and errors of logic. I realise you claim you will not participate in further discussion with me, but I'm counting on you not being genuine about having an open mind.
Do you still maintain that facts and data are different? (Sure I can make a distinction between the two, since they are two different words, but in many/most applications they are the same.) Seriously, do you really think these are two different things? Can you at least acknowledge that you made an error here and the only thing I did was to point it out. Suddenly, for pointing out your error I am the 'bad man'. Does that seem fair and reasonable to you? I hope not.
Do you understand how science works? I don't think so. If you did you could never make a remark like that.
Of course I have an argument against everything. That is what one is meant to do in science. It is how we test speculations, hypotheses and theories. They have to be rigorously and endlessly questioned, probed and attacked. It is how they are refined and improved, if they are sound, or abandoned if they are faulty.
Any scientist worth the name will be his own fiercest critic of his own idea. But she will also be smart enough to appreciate the value of different perspectives. She will seek out colleagues to attack her hypothesis with all the ammunition they can muster. Have you never heard of peer review?
So even if I see an idea I like, while I might comment favourably on it and even offer supporting data, I shall also seek out its weakest aspect and attack it violently. You need to understand that to do it in any other way is to fail.
However, your post was a special case. You simply made several statements that were in error. They were not debatable. They were not possibilities. They were simply wrong. You do not want to accept that. Fine. Remain ignorant. It is a foolish choice, but it is one you are free to make.
I set you a couple of challenges:
"Provide facts that show that the majority of contemporary scientists qualified to consider the matter actually believed this."
All you had to do was to gather that information, post it, and thereby prove that you were correct. That is how these things work. That is how you convince your audience of your idea. With facts.
But what did you actually do? You ran away, crying that dealing with me was like running into a brick wall. Poor litte man. If you think you are correct the solution is simple. Prove it.
I also challenged your understanding of aerodynamics: "I think you will find it is considerably more complex than that."
All you had to do was to come back with some basic aeronautical equations, described in your own words and you could have made me look foolish.
You know what EAdam, I keep hoping someone like you will come along and do exactly that. It would demonstrate there is hope for them. But instead we get this vacuous litany of whining. "It's not fair. You are so closed minded. It's people like you who slow down progess."
No EAdam, it is people like you who remain stubbornly ignorant, run away from vigorous questioning and clutch logical fallacies close to your chest.
Now are you going to take the opportunity afforded you here to grow up and start to learn some real things, or are you going to retreat into your comfortable world of self delusion?
