Harry Veeder <hveeder...@gmail.com> wrote: The question stands. If the evidence is so compelling, why don't >> intelligent people accept it? >> >> > > Why are some intelligent people racist? >
Indeed. Willful ignorant often plays a role, as it does in cold fusion. Many of the people most stridently opposed to it take pride in the fact that they have read nothing and they know nothing. "This is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance -- that principle is contempt prior to investigation." - Herbert Spencer History is full of large groups of intelligent people who made ignorant errors leading to disasters. Especially military history. Examples include: The U.S. Civil War, World War I, the Battle of the Somme, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and the U.S. invasion of Iraq. See also the excellent document someone posted yesterday, covering the 2008 crash and other recent history: http://www.princeton.edu/~rbenabou/papers/Patterns%20of%20Denial%204l%20fin.pdf This has many telling quotes, such as Joseph Cassano, head of A.I.G. Financial Services: “It is hard for us, without being flippant, to even see a scenario within any kind of realm of reason that would see us losing one dollar in any of those transactions...” Looking back, you get the impression that hundreds of thousands of people simultaneously lost their minds on many occasions. I think that is a valid description of what happens. See: Charles Mackay, "Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds" http://www.cmi-gold-silver.com/pdf/mackaych2451824518-8.pdf "Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one." See also: Barbara Tuchman, "The March of Folly" - Jed
