You may be right, dead right, as you speed along in your argument, but as far as changing another’s mind is concerned, you will probably be just as futile as if you were wrong. William Gibbs McAdoo, Secretary of the Treasury in Woodrow Wilson’s cabinet, declared that he had learned, as a result of his crowded years in politics, that “it is impossible to defeat an ignorant man by argument.” An ignorant man? You put it mildly, Mr. McAdoo. My experience has been that it is all but impossible to make any man, regardless of his I.Q. rating, change his mind by a verbal joust.
