Mark, when someone insists the equivalent of 2 + 2 = 5 its best to drop the argument. You obviously are not dealing with rational people. I've had some of these same literalist Bible thumpers argue with me that man coexisted with dinosaurs and that 6911, based upon James Ussher "calculations", was about 900 years too old.
Just like dealing with old man Fahrenheit. 0 F was colder than it should ever get and 32 (for some odd reason) was the boiling point. So if you found a temperature lower than 0, then it was you that was the problem and not the scale. When this idiocy was pointed out, he faked up a 0 out of water, ice, and ammonium chloride, kept the melting point, and after his death, had the boiling point corrected to the actual boiling point.
Hmm, the idea that we are dealing with crackpot 'scientists' is oddly accurate.