An eye-opening claim that changed my view on argumentation forever that I discovered through studying persuasion: as long as somebody can rationalize something that helps their argument, they will. This isn't true 100% of the time, but quite close.

This explains why people hold views incorrigibly that seem so ridiculous to others. 97% of climate scientists believing in global warming isn't convincing because somebody who already is skeptical of global warming gets all the justification needed by the 3% who don't believe in global warming. To skeptics, the fact that scientific consensus has been wrong in the past is enough to justify their skepticism on global warming. These rationales are silly to people who believe in global warming, but the rationales are fine for those who don't.

In my own life, as well as on this board, I've discovered this happening. I do it, you do it, we all do it. Given the vast quantity and deep depths of argumentation we've had on this board, one would expect a whole lot of opinion change too. But the opinion change has been very meager. This shows that there is something else going on. The explanation from the field of persuasion includes the above.