I've never seen anyone change his mind because of the power of a superior argument or the acquisition of new facts. But I've seen plenty of people change behavior to avoid being mocked.
It is practically imposible to teach good programming to students that have had a prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration.
A lady came up to me on the street, pointed at my suede jacket and said, 'Don't you know a cow was murdered for that jacket?' I said 'I didn't know there were any witnesses. Now I'll have to kill you too'.