That's misguiding and unproductive. Any group is made up of hard-liners and on-the-fence people, and hard-liners change too, just slower. Being dismissive is as damaging as misinformation.

Anti-intellectualism, anti-science, etc. will always attract some people to some degree. Within those constraints there's a world of difference.

The second paragraph seems to come across as a mere rephrasing of the exact sentiment the comment the first paragraph so passionately rebukes.

Care to dissuade me of this, because it seems like you’ve simultaneously concurred with the statement you’ve called misguiding and unproductive.

Here's a rephrase. You have to be understanding in order to positively influence people. Therefore, it's unproductive to be dismissive. Anti-scientific sentiment as phenomenon will not disappear, but will be shaped by that positive influence. It's misguiding to leave it at saying that the phenomenon will not disappear, because that implies that the groups in question are outside our influence.

Edit: if I'm still coming off vague, a sibling to my original comment says what I wanted to say more succinctly.

He's saying that there will always be anti-science people, but individuals who are anti-science will not always stay anti-science, so it is still worth putting in the effort to change their minds

Give it a chance. Question more why the comment is made that way. Not everyone is comfortable in communicating as you did there.

Are you suggesting we may not be in disagreement? I really think we are.

But good science teaching and reporting can make the anti-science crowd smaller and less politically influential than it would be otherwise.

Perhaps, but overcoming the audience's strong prior commitment to anti-science seems to be a tough haul.