How would you handle this argument-based situation?

Please note: I mean argument in the sense of presenting evidence in a semi-intellectual setting (like Fluther), not in an “I did not! You did too!” shouting match.

Imagine you’ve spent years reading things. Books, magazine and newspaper articles, on the internet, off of the internet, heard experts speak, etc. etc., and find at some point that you know a rather large amount about a pretty good array of subjects. Now imagine that out of this whirl of information and insight you’ve spent your lifetime absorbing, have come ideas of your own. All the bits of evidence are like puzzle pieces, and you’ve been able to put them together into what you think is a pretty convincing, evidence-based presentation. (This could be about literally any topic. Let’s use zoos as an example.) The footnotes lead to whole books and articles about zookeeping, documentaries, interviews with renowned zookeepers, and such.

Now, someone who is not as well-read as you are comes along and reads your essay. They question some of the facts you’ve presented because they are not what this person has heard in the media. (Say that he’s a cook, not a zookeeper, and not very well read in general anyway.) Your conclusions about how to build the best zoo are unusual, not necessarily something a cook would have thought about, but they’re pretty well researched. You say, “I believe my facts are true, and if you read these books about zookeeping, you would think so, too.”

Cook says, “I am not interested in reading zookeeping books, I’m a cook. Can you summarize the book for me?”

So you recommend a documentary on Hulu, which is only an hour long and summarizes lots of zookeeping information. Cook doesn’t have an hour to kill watching some program, and wants to hear the information summarized by you again, hopefully in a sentence or two.

So you point out that you’ve already summarized them as well as you can in your essay, but the cook has read your essay and thinks that your conclusions can’t possibly be right because that doesn’t sound like anything he’s heard about zoos. We’re back where we began: someone disagrees with your researched opinion, but is unwilling to do all the research you’ve done and simply writes you off as being wrong and possibly ignorant of the way zoos should be run. After all, the cook has been to a zoo a few times, and has a stack of National Geographics at home with pretty pictures of lions and zebras on the cover. Clearly he knows something about zoos – enough to know that your essay is bunk.

Is there any point to continuing the discussion? Or does it become one of those pointless internet arguments where everybody loses? You clearly can’t make him do the lifetime of reading you’ve done (or even make him read an article), but he refuses to admit that you have any merit whatsoever. Keep in mind that this guy votes, and there might be a zoo issue on the ballot or something, so there is a small but significant reason why you’d like to get him good and informed.

Sorry this is so long. Some things are just not easily reduced into a few sentences, which is what gets me into this situation in the first place. ;)