> Recognize that we need scientists as much as scientific dissidents. What's a "scientific dissident" to a "scientist"? Because a scientist may be a dissident,

> Recognize that we need scientists as much as scientific dissidents. What's a "scientific dissident" to a "scientist"? Because a scientist may be a dissident, but a dissident is not necessarily a scientist. > And as soon as one hears "scientific consensus" you know you're listening to a political statement not a scientific one. This is false. Let's take the recent news about that new room temperature superconductor. "Scientific consensus" means validity and reproducibility. Achieving results that validate the primary hypothesis is not a "political statement". > When the answer is "final", science is no longer the ongoing motivation. You have a warped view of what science is. History hasn't proved that science is "not conclusive", but that it is continuously evolving, adding layers to previously simpler answers, e.g. the newtonian concept of gravity hasn't been discarded by contemporary theories, just extended. It drives me mad when people talks about science like a series of revolutions that break with everything taken for granted until that point. This is not what happens. If anything, new science supersedes old science. What you describe is what happens when science collides with quackery. And yes, that applies to climate change deniers.