It's very simple. It's called being stubborn.
I had a friend in New York who could literally answer just about 98 percent of every, and I meany every question on Jeopardy, (or question to the answer in jeapordy fashion), yet would never ever ever ever ever admit he was wrong.
I have another friend in California who is the exact same way. He won't even laugh at a really good joke, but expects you to roll on the floor if he tells one.
The friend in New York is a cessna pilot, and knows a lot about every aspect of planes be it a jet airliner or others.
We were having a debate about the safety of airline travel. He said that it's more safe to fly than driving. I responded by telling him that the reason for this was because statistically, there are many many more vehicles on the road than airplanes, at any given time. And that's why there are more accidents on the ground with cars.
There are about 3,000 planes in the air from morning evening. How many cars are there? Millions? No comparison. Period.
But NOOOOOOOOOOO,....he was doing the Muhamad Ali rope-a-dope dance better than Ali himself. It got so out of hand with yelling and screaming, because he had no answer but had to blurt out insignificant points, so his ego wouldn't explode out of existence.
If GOD himself came down and told him he was wrong, he'd argue with him.
Some people are so fixated in believing the information they have ammased over the years is the end all, and if they are proven wrong, they will not admit to it, because in their mind, if they admit they are wrong, then they feel they have lost the battle forever and ever, because they have never been wrong before, and they have never been challenged to this degree, and that they are now vulnerable. They don't like people to burst their bubble. They've been living with that bubble their entire life.
As you well know, it'll never happen, so I don't know why I keep trying. Maybe it's that I just can't give them the satisfaction, since everyone else has, and just ended the conversation.
Oh, I almost forgot, the guy in New York did that all the time. When he felt trapped and couldn't wiggle his way out, that's the term he always used. "Let's just drop the subject" Like clock work. But if he wanted to prove me wrong on something, we had to finalize it some way with a formal admittance on my part.
Sometimes I think it's just a waste of time on my part.