NeilW wrote:XFool wrote:I've never personally checked out the existence of Australia. I defer to the "priesthood" of geographers.
Really. Does that mean you rely entirely upon appeal to authority even when there are simple mechanisms to do side checks? books, newspaper articles, encyclopedia discussions, tourist guides, and maps depicting Australia;
Wouldn't using any of those simply be relying on a similar "appeal to authority"?
NeilW wrote:what would be the alternative explanation is for these?
Well, quite.
NeilW wrote: And a simple phone call or Skype to Australians would provide more evidence.
And of course you could line up at the Quantas desk and go there - using your GPS device as a backup.
How many of us have personally verified all things we have been told of? How many of us have measured the circumference of the globe for ourselves? The distance to the stars? Confirmed that there is an icy Southern continent? That there are indeed blue whales living in the ocean?
NeilW wrote:There is no such overwhelming levels of circumstantial evidence with SARS-2 because it is too early to have fully mapped it out. What we have is a map saying "here be dragons".
We know it exists. We know it is a caused by a virus. We know it is infectious. We know it has spread around the world. We know it causes disease. We know of epidemics and pandemics. We know it hasn't gone away. We
ought to know it isn't caused by magic, or by "dragons".
We have expertise, and we used to know this too - before we decided to be silly instead.