Just to interrupt the Lane/Philips pissing contest, how about examining the structure of debate over facts and ideas, and practices which either promote or deflect reason?

One technique for shutting down debate is declaring a disputed proposition a self-evident axiom. "Marriage means what Howard said it meant". "Science shows that CO2 emission is creating calamitous temperature rise". Contradiction is (gasp, rattle, shudder) DENIAL. Debate over.

Let’s see how the “denialism” trick is worked.

The key to this debate-closing technique is CONFLATION. One can deny anything from what's blindingly obvious to what's demonstrably hair brained and phoney. The Nazi Holocaust, the effectiveness of vaccination, the role of Monsanto against informed choice, the Darwinian theory of evolution, the US landing on the moon, the link between HIV and AIDS, the role of germs, are all demonstrable to a level of “beyond reasonable doubt”. To deny any of them would require a hell of a stretch, and would place the denier in tinfoil hat territory or worse.

One can also find evidentiary reasons based on accepted epistemology to dispute AGW, Howard marriage, the nature/nurture basis of sexual orientation (one way or the other), medical harm from (male) circumcision or from abortion. Conflating the questioning of any of these with something like Holocaust denial or creationism, under the umbrella of “denialism” is nothing more than an attempt to shut down reasoned debate.

//Salby has shown that the CO2 content of the atmosphere is governed by the temperature. The temperature is not governed by the CO2 content of the atmosphere.//

Has it occurred to you that Salby (whoever she is) could be both right and wrong?

Wrong that the CO2 content of the atmosphere is governed by temperature, and right that the temperature is not governed by CO2.

Because you've said yourself that the CO2 concentration is increasing whilst average temperatures have levelled off. If the temperature has levelled off, and CO2 levels follow temperature trends, why does the level of CO2 keep increasing steadily?

And then you have the other half of the equation: CO2 levels do keep steadily increasing and we're not all baked potatoes yet. Maybe there is more to this climate business than just CO2. Well, of course there is: all the other greenhouse gases, volcanic activity, deforestation, solar activity, astronomical perturbations, etc. etc.

//No statutory redefinition of the word “marriage” will change that, for them, or for people who in the future wish to marry. The statutory redefinition will be, so far as humanly possible, ignored.//

Your powers of precognition astound me. I wish my crystal ball wasn't on the fritz, so that I could see the future as easily as you do. Nevertheless, I won't be placing any wagers on the basis of your soothsaying.

//opposition to GMO//

//the role of Monsanto against informed choice//

conflation: The merging of two or more sets of information, texts, ideas, etc. into one

Julian, was there some point to your rambling? Stating that it is axiomatic that marriage is a union between a man and a woman did not shut down debate.
Any other suggestions, as to how to shut down the nonsense?
You referred to the legislation which codified the law of marriage, in what appeared a derisive manner, and erroneously, as Howard's law. Howard did not formulate or introduce the law, which already existed as common law. It pre-existed both Howard and the statute which declared it. It is not Howard's law.

Leo Lane has written that marriage is exclusively between a man and a woman because this is axiomatic which means self-evident and beyond debate. Howard has assumed it and stated it. The amateur cleric Dr David van Geld has assumed it. Correspondents on this thread are challenging it. The Irish people have challenged it in a referendum. Proclaiming it to be axiomatic is shutting down debate to the fullest extent possible without the power to ban contradiction as crimethink.

As for difficulty in coping with discussion of the structure of debate, dismissing it as “rambling”, there is a vast amount of education about this available. A start might be Robert H Thouless – Google “Thouless Straight and Crooked Thinking.” Of course, one can always fall back on the three word slogan: “Ignorance Is Strength”

I had a look at the website to which you referred, Julian, and I would say that your labelling of the amendment to the Marriage Act defining marriage as “Howard’s law would come under ”Appeal to prejudice”. You use it as a means to distract from the fact that it is soundly based,on the then existing law, by erroneously implying that Howard composed it. Your approach is slightly above that of the then greens leader, whose argument against the law was that it was “hateful”. What a dunce! Shutting down of debate by reference to an axiomatic statement seems to be your own idea, with about as much practical application as the science of the IPCC, on global warming..