[OT] [I mean totally OT] Re: What can you "new"

[Sean Kelly]

Walter Bright wrote:
> BCS wrote:
>> And it's not just in theology that I find this a problem; take a look 
>> at the (not unbiased) documetery Expelled 
>> (http://www.expelledthemovie.com), people are getting ostrosized for 
>> questionig the party line on evolution. Some of these people aren't 
>> even getting past "maybe" without getting shot down.
> 
> This is hardly limited to religious beliefs. It happens with political 
> correctness, too. Look at the recent slashdot article where Dyson dares 
> to question global warming: 
> http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/03/28/1558225
> 
> My own theory is that the shriller a person cries to suppress "wrong" 
> beliefs, the more that person fears their own beliefs might be the ones 
> that are wrong.
> 
> Or perhaps everyone just enjoys a public stoning now and then :-(

There was another Slashdot article a while back about conspiracy 
theories.  The crux of the issue was that if evidence is presented that 
contradicts the conspiracy theory, this actually serves to strengthen a 
person's belief in the conspiracy theory.  This was all based on some 
scientific study investigating the psychology behind such things.  It 
seems reasonable that the same psychological motivator that encourages 
people's conviction in their unreasonable conspiracy theories should 
work for other ostensibly unreasonable beliefs as well.