Restating, underscoring, or even strengthening those scientific results won’t solve that problem. The results already come from multiple fields, are reinforced by multiple lines of evidence, and have been vetted (extremely vetted, you might say) by several extended, multi-layered review processes. Collectively, we don’t know how to “know” anything more confidently than we know this stuff.
If someone chooses to simply reject those scientific institutions, procedures, and results, then piling on more facts is beside the point. It’s not about facts any more, it’s about the authority of the institutions.
I understand why politicians who get their funding from oil companies want to discredit global warming and research into climate change, what I don’t understand is why that willingness to disregard established facts trickles down to everyday republicans.
I’m starting to think that this has more to do with tribalism than actual beliefs. The right-wing tribe believes this set of ideas, given to them by their elected leaders, and nothing will change their mind about that.
Given that we can now safely refute any scientific research (biased), well reported news story (fake news), and even disregard things we’ve seen and heard ourselves (he didn’t really mean that), we have entered a dangerous era where a major section of the population has decided to make up their own reality.
How can we have a meaningful conversation when your loyalty to your tribe means more than facts, reason, or logic?