Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge

This blog post and this one serve as a good illustration of why Darwin was correct when he said "ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge."The whole controversy could have been avoided had "Karen" done some Google searches and then contacted the head of HeliOS in a more civil manner. I disagree that his initial response was a big jump to the conclusions, since Karen came at him with a rhetorical elephant gun and one of her first statements was essentially an accusation that he was in the business of corrupting minors followed by threats of legal action. This incident reminds me of an incident that happened about two years ago

Karen didn't help her case when she not only didn't explain much about the student's behavior, but presented herself as someone who had some working knowledge of Linux. When combined with the fact that an hour or two of research would have made her drop the case, she basically invited a lot of the grief. Had it not been for the fact that her last name and other information that could be tied back to her had been politely withheld from the public, it could have gotten a lot worse. She really did give a lot of credence to the insinuations that she was just a troll.

After having been schooled a few times in the past by people that were a lot more knowledgeable, one tactic that I learned is that it's sometimes beneficial to do the intellectual equivalent of a border skirmish with someone you disagree with. Even if you lose that, you can learn a lot about your opponent and prepare accordingly.