but it doesn't require either staggering ignorance, or a significant level or irrationality.
So that's your threshold. OK. I get it. Staggering ignorance with an irrationality component. That's a reasonable threshold.
The idea that the earth is flat is only believed by an insignificant minority of people, and a still smaller percentage of educated people.
The problem I see with that threshold is its lack of utility. If something is so very far out there that virtually no one believes it, then it's irrelevant. If it's irrelevant, it's a waste of time and energy to set a threshold for it, give the threshold a label, and and measure one's environment against it. The thing would collect a ton of dust between uses. It seems to me that, to be useful, it would have to be used. To be used, it would need a less draconian standard so that you'd have occasion to encounter it with some frequency.
I would set the standard at "defy credibility" with a touch of stubbornness. That is, if the position were partially a result of stubbornness, then the credibility limit would be eased.
I'm pretty easy going in my tolerance for different perspectives and opinions and idea. I may not buy them, but I tolerate just about anything for which the holder can offer a semi-respectable argument and I can stretch my suspension of disbelief pretty far when folks are earnest and thoughtful in their support of them. Past that, forget it. I tend to use "flat-earth" for anything that exceeds plausibility, something without a coherent justification. This catches more ideas than your threshold, thus is more useful. If we are to progress, we need to invalidate more than just the "staggeringly ignorant."
So, while I wouldn't put the notion that humans are not affecting climate in the "staggeringly ignorant" category, I don't know of any plausible justification for it so I think it's about time that it was cropped off the list of ideas that are treated respectfully. That's how I would use the threshold and the label--cropping. More productive, I think, than your construct.
So that's why I said that the notion that humans are not affecting climate is just too far out there. And the notion that green Americans can fix global warming. And the notion that Bush's salient objective in tracking SWIFT transactions is the imperial presidency. I don't know that "flat earth" is the best label for my threshold. Thames's notion that it was about outdated science is probably the context for which it is intended and understood. But, when you asked if I could see "flat earth" applied to anthropogenic climate change, that's what I had in mind.
|
