Posted: Aug 08, 2016 12:24 am
Believe me when I say that I don't think that "jamest or the likes of him" is threatening to most people. You can find 30 page physics threads that blow up over a few pages, or thousands of pages of 9/11 bullshit or hundreds of pages of expanding earth nonsense.
It definitely isn't about being threatened - in fact if you look a lot of the responses in those threads comes from people who feel confident of their physics, engineering or geology. They think they know enough to expose how fucking silly the things being posted are. They like it because it's not an intellectual threat.
Case in point: http://www.rationalskepticism.org/physi ... 52888.html
People post because they think they might just be able to sort out the misunderstandings. Of course what ends up happening is that the people asking questions just don't want to understand and it becomes a sort of mindless back and forth until that message sinks home.
It definitely isn't about being threatened - in fact if you look a lot of the responses in those threads comes from people who feel confident of their physics, engineering or geology. They think they know enough to expose how fucking silly the things being posted are. They like it because it's not an intellectual threat.
Case in point: http://www.rationalskepticism.org/physi ... 52888.html
People post because they think they might just be able to sort out the misunderstandings. Of course what ends up happening is that the people asking questions just don't want to understand and it becomes a sort of mindless back and forth until that message sinks home.