Does ridicule effectively communicate ideas? No. In fact, research indicates it makes your position appear weaker.

Grassroots rationalist groups who engage in any form of communication with the public might want to seek, contribute to and encourage research into the results of their outreach efforts. Given we know relatively little about the impacts of various forms of public communication, knowing which efforts are useful, which are useless and which are damaging is invaluable for groups who don’t have the resources to waste on getting it wrong or the luxury of losing potential audience members.

Secondly, there is evidence supporting the use of aggressive language such as ridicule only under limited contexts. Those contexts seem to conflict with what one might presume to be ‘rationalist’ values – endeavours that arguably promote freedom of thought over indulging in group-think and critical thinking over conformity. However, if those goals are product-driven, where success is measured not by how people think but by the pressure a group can exhibit on a key demographic, ridicule and mockery just might work. Humiliating the right targets could well create conformity and result in laws being changed, products being removed from shelves, people being fired or hired from influential positions…and so on. For product-driven rationalists, there is some wiggle-room in arguing for the use of ridicule.

Lastly, if the goal is to encourage those from diverse communities to think critically and to cooperate in order find ways of limiting the impact of poor thinking on individuals and the community, then ridicule is a poor choice of communication. At best it further polarises the issues, prompting those you’re trying to communicate with to reinforce their poor thinking skills while doing little to help them think logically. At worst, it prompts third parties to view your argument as comparatively uninformed, potentially isolating individuals who might otherwise be reached by a less aggressive approach.

A fantastic and very well researched (seriously -- the references section alone is worth the click-through) essay on what science tells us about the use of aggressive language (which includes ridicule) and effective communication.