Well, well, well, well, well. It looks like antivaxer @delbigtree wants me to "debate" him on his podcast @HighWireTalk—a guy who recently appropriated the Yellow Star of David that the Nazis made Jews wear during the Holocaust to represent the "persecution" of antivaxers. 1/https://twitter.com/HighWireTalk/status/1115604823808696320 …
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For instance, it is possible for antivaxers to "win" such debates because the rules of such debates are not the rules of science. Rhetoric, fancy argumentation, and the like matter far more than facts, science, and scientific studies. 9/
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Also, scientists are often ill-prepared for techniques like the Gish gallop, in which cranks jump from claim to claim, study to study so fast that it puts the the science advocate on defense. 10/
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No one is familiar with every claim and study, making the Gish gallop powerful. If the crank wins—or, more accurately, appears to win—taking part in such a debate is disastrous. 11/ https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop …
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Worse, even if the crank loses, he wins. Cranks instinctively know this. How do they win? Just by appearing on the same stage or in the same venue they appear to others to have a position that, from a scientific standpoint, is worthy of being considered rather than dismissed. 12/
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For a much more detailed explanation of why it is almost never a good idea to debate cranks and pseudoscientists, consider this post I wrote about a much less odious crank, Andrew Weil. 13/https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/to-debate-or-not-to-debate-the-strange-bedfellows-of-andrew-weil/ …
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Here's another extended post I wrote about why I don't debate cranks. 14/https://respectfulinsolence.com/2007/10/23/homeopathy-debate-at-the-university-of-c/ …
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And here's yet another discussion. It's from 2007. (I've been nothing if not consistent about this.) 15/https://respectfulinsolence.com/2007/01/04/just-how-stupid-do-they-think-i-am/ …
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It's all part of a principle of cranks that I came up with a long time ago. Cranks think that all truth comes from public debate. 16/https://respectfulinsolence.com/2013/04/26/all-truth-comes-from-public-debate-a-corollary-to-crank-magnetism/ …
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Crsnks seem to think that science is decided in public debates and view the quite proper reluctance among scientists like myself and skeptics to engage cranks in such spectacles as “cowardice.” 17/
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It is not, but cranks continue to labor under the delusion that science is somehow decided in such forums. 18/
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Such debates are a variant of a sort of argumentum ad populum, in which something is argued to be true because it is popular or, in a debate, an argument is thought to be closer to the truth because it is more popular. That's not how science works. 19/
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So, I know what
@delbigtree is about here with his ever-so-kind "invitation" to appear on@HighWireTalk. He's about propaganda for his cause, not science. I know he'll accuse me of cowardice. 20/Show this thread -
I can handle being called a coward. After all, I've put up with nearly 15 years of abuse from
@delbigtree's ilk, including cranks, quacks, and antivaxers. I words about just one today, Mike Adams, whose attacks on me have been far worse. 21/https://twitter.com/gorskon/status/1115630866389250048 …Show this thread -
I've also been the target of harassment at work by antivaxers and quacks, including repeated attempts to get me fired. The last time I met with my cancer center director, he joked that he hadn't heard any complaints about my blog recently. 22/
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None of this even counts all the legal threats and even the occasional death threat over msny years. 23/
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So let's just put it this way. A little tantrum on
@delbigtree's part in which he attacks me as coward on his podcast or on Facebook or Twitter barely registers with me. I've dealt with far worse for a long time. I also consider the source, and laugh. 24/Show this thread -
If anyone sites consider debating
@delbigtree, though, I recommend@thereal_truther's approach. 25/25https://twitter.com/thereal_truther/status/1115650520692080640 …
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If anyone does consider debating... And I thought I'd caught all the typos and predictive typing errors.

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And, yes, I know there are other typos that I missed, but they're simple single substitution errors that don’t really affect meaning, as readers know what I meant.

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End of conversation
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