Kim O'Hara wrote:I am eternally (well, so far!) curious about why and how people manage to maintain irrational beliefs in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
You mean irrational beliefs like these?
Climate change "science" involves the commission of the informal fallacy of insufficient
sample sizes which qualifies the predictions as commissions of the informal fallacy known as
hasty generalization, a.k.a.:
-the fallacy of insufficient statistics/the fallacy of insufficient sample: basing broad conclusions regarding the statistics of a survey from a small sample group that fails to sufficiently represent all the data
-generalization from the particular/leaping to a conclusion/hasty induction/
secundum quid: inductive generalization based on insufficient evidence; essentially making a hasty conclusion without considering all of the variables
Climate change "science" also involves the commission of the informal fallacy called
cum hoc ergo propter hoc. a.k.a.,
correlation proves causation--a faulty assumption that correlation between two variables implies that one causes the other. In this case, the fallacy is committed when the claim is made that global warming has an anthropogenic cause. It also involves the informal fallacies of the single cause (
causal oversimplification)--it is assumed that there is one, simple cause of an outcome when in reality it may have been caused by a number of only jointly sufficient causes (which takes us back to hasty generalization);
incomplete comparison – where not enough information is provided to make a complete comparison;
regression fallacy--ascribes cause where none exists. The flaw is failing to account for natural fluctuations. It is frequently a special kind of the
post hoc fallacy;
argumentum ad populum (appeal to widespread belief, bandwagon argument,
appeal to the majority, appeal to the people)--where a proposition is claimed to be true or good solely because many people believe it to be so; and an
appeal to emotion--where an argument is made due to the manipulation of emotions, rather than the use of valid reasoning, in this instance it is a special
appeal to fear where the argument is made by increasing fear and prejudice not only towards to the opposing side but aslo by appealing to an imminent yet somehow unknown future danger.
and I 
What you said is the epitome of PC.
