> With respect to what is being discussed here, the question I would ask > is; how does a field of human endeavour which has at its foundation a > profound belief in the value of reason go about addressing an audience > which, for a variety of reasons, has a large proportion of members > whose response to the issues is irrational and who do not value reason > in the same way, instead apparently preferring an almost pre-rational, > mythic narrative and its associated value system?
Hi Fergus,
Firstly, I'm assuming there's no real need to address this audience except in cases where there are democratic decisions to be made: for example, cosmologists and string theorists can just ignore them, broadly speaking.
With that in mind, I think the Pielkian (Jr) answer is to redefine the problem in such a way that the denialists can swallow an acceptable solution, the Mooney and Nisbet answer is to dress it up in language that might disarm their objections, and the scientists' answer is to wait for them to die out.
