Add false appeal to present ignorance to the list. Sometimes people will say that there currently isn’t enough evidence available to finish the debate, so we should put it off. When this is said, it usually either misrepresents the amount of evidence currently available as less than it is, or accurately represents the amount of evidence available but is spoken by someone with no intention of ever gathering more. For example, “We don’t know whether the earth is warming right now, so we shouldn’t do anything hasty until we know more.”
Presumably that’s not a conversation halter; you can immediately make the case that their statement is false now (maybe after a break to gather some facts). I guess I’d be likely to end the discussion if someone said something ridiculous about the present state of scientific fact (e.g. “the jury is still out on evolution—we need to wait for more evidence”), and it was a central point.
Add false appeal to present ignorance to the list. Sometimes people will say that there currently isn’t enough evidence available to finish the debate, so we should put it off. When this is said, it usually either misrepresents the amount of evidence currently available as less than it is, or accurately represents the amount of evidence available but is spoken by someone with no intention of ever gathering more. For example, “We don’t know whether the earth is warming right now, so we shouldn’t do anything hasty until we know more.”
Presumably that’s not a conversation halter; you can immediately make the case that their statement is false now (maybe after a break to gather some facts). I guess I’d be likely to end the discussion if someone said something ridiculous about the present state of scientific fact (e.g. “the jury is still out on evolution—we need to wait for more evidence”), and it was a central point.