Denialism

I recently experienced a phenomenon known as denialism.  Denialism is defined as  the practice of creating the illusion of debate when there is none.  See http://www.denialism.com/ for a full description.  I have been very active in Facebook.  I have discovered that you can add friends that are on the extreme fringes.  Through my interest in dog training and whippets in particular, I have added some friends that I subsequently regretted.  One person was adding groups that were clearly racist and/or extremely prejudiced against Islam.  Typically, these are fundamentalist Christians.  I have inherent problem with these folks as long as there is an acceptance that there are multiple paths up the mountain of experiencing God.  Unfortunately, fundamentalists of many religions (even fundamentalist atheists) think their way is the only way.    One example of denialism is the denial of the validity of evolution. By the way, I don't feel that some kind of intelligent design is a contradiction with evolution.  The "creator" or "force behind everything"  can be behind evolution. 

Another fellow, posted a denial of climate change and I was surprised to find a number of denialist climate change sites.  I think there can be a healthy debate on the details of climate change but, overall, there can be no denial that there is drastic change going on caused by our activity.  The denialists hand pick a few fringe scientists and politicians to try and "prove" their case even though the vast majority of scienctists are in agreement.  When I pointed out the numerous environmental problems we have caused, he had a irrational answer for everything.  For example, when I pointed out the numerous species extinctions we have caused and the large number of species in trouble, his answer was that new species are being created and that species have always come and gone.  No understanding of the tragedy of man made extinctions.  It is very scary to me that this type of thinking seems to be becoming wide spread.  That journalism appears to be in decline.  That entertainment and news are becoming more and more merged.  That we seems to be becoming more and more polarized.  That intelligent debate is becoming more and more rare.