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Fascinating. I must admit I had rather assumed it was possible for intelligent people to read the same research, spend years accumulating their own observations, consider the evidence carefully, and still arrive at different conclusions. It is genuinely disappointing to discover that such a possibility appears not even to warrant consideration. Particularly given that there are many people within this very community who have read the same research, lived just as fully, reflected just as seriously, and nevertheless arrived at different conclusions. Not necessarily opposite conclusions, either. In my own case, I suspect I am considerably closer to your position than you are likely imagining, certainly closer than to the prevailing one held by our wider world. Of course the difference is not that I find your conclusions wholly unpersuasive. It is that I remain unconvinced they have earned the degree of certainty you seem prepared to grant them. That is why your reference in the original essay to the “inescapable conclusion” that “we all know” struck me as rather odd. The difficulty, it seems to me, is not that others have failed to understand the evidence, as you suggest. It is that you have mistaken one interpretation of that evidence for the only reasonable one. It is a surprisingly dogmatic posture for someone ostensibly arguing for a more thoughtful engagement with the subject. |