stevestory
Posts: 13407
Joined: Oct. 2005
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He's doing it, he's just doing an awful job of it.
Here's another example of why, moment to moment, these kinds of rationalizations can appear reasonable to the creobot (This is a hypothetical example, don't bother telling me that I got a detail or two wrong, that's not the point), and reduce cognitive dissonance:
Suppose you know that Potassium decays into Argon, and that argon is a gas at the temperatures where Potassium is molten, and you know the earth used to be molten, so you look at Potassium deposits and you find a certain percentage of Argon mixed in, and you know the half-life, and you know any mixed-in argon gas would have escaped during the molten stage, so you do the calculations and lo and behold, the calculation says the rock formed 4 billion years ago, which you know various other ways was when the earth was molten. Now, if you don't have any preexisting beliefs this interferes with, you can just accept the datum. One more fact to file away. But say this conclusion violates the foundational beliefs you have about the world. If this is right, everything you know about the universe and your place in it is wrong. Under those circumstances, it's not hard at all to insert a small monkey wrench. You tell yourself that some unknown circumstance trapped argon in the molten potassium. Some pressure, or confinement, or unknown physical chemistry rate function. Such an unknown process isn't impossible, is it? So which is better? Allow this unknown possibility, or face the obliteration of your worldview? From that perspective, it looks perfectly reasonable. Accept this tiny thing without evidence, and preserve numerous and important beliefs you have, which give you comfort, connect you to a community, etc etc.
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