You wonder: “If it weren’t for a doctor who looked at the epidemiological study done by a couple of housewives, would we know about Lyme disease?”

Yes, we probably would, although we might have learned about it later than we did. Certainly scientists by and large are conservative, and that attitude sometimes delays a proper acceptance of new knowledge longer than it should. I understand the Australian discoverer of Helicobacter pylori had quite a struggle.

And yes, some venal scientists actively defend the status quo for profit. I could mention a few who have persisted in doing that for tobacco and/or fossil-fuel interests.

But science as an enterprise is self-correcting. When actual data emerge that challenge an existing view, the existing view eventually changes. You’ve provided one example; I’ve provided another.

The problem with climate change is that there are a lot of people (and a handful of scientists) resisting the mainstream view without providing data to refute it. Surely, if they had any data, they would bring it forward. But they don’t, so they just obfuscate and obstruct.

The Internet has multiplied their ability to misinform the public. The “straight scoop” should be made available as well, and that duty falls mainly to bloggers like Greg and commenters like me.

First, it’s perfectly good English, and perfectly valid, to call somebody who refuses to believe a fact a denier, because that person denies the truth of that fact. Charges that using the word lumps climate-change deniers in with those who deny that the Holocaust happened are in my experience only made by climate-change deniers — and my experience on climate blogs is extensive.

Second, asserting that “climate change as predicted has not yet happened” is far too general. It deflects attention from what scientists have discovered about how climate is changing — not by models or predictions, but by actual observations. We know our planet is warming today, and we know how conditions on it changed when it warmed in the past. It’s clear that today’s warming will cause problems if it continues.

It’s rational to question how bad things will get in the future, largely because what we do going forward has a big influence on those outcomes. But plenty of people are denying the known facts about today’s climate, and calling those people climate-change deniers is both fair and necessary.

You are personally not anti-science? That’s a joke, right? I mean, you just finished writing a bunch of anti-science crap. So, how are you not anti-science? You say you studied several upper level science courses? I guess they couldn’t have been too impressive. You didn’t even bother to mention what they were. What were those “pseudo-scientific beliefs”? I guess they couldn’t have been too important either.

You mentioned trust, but why should we trust you? You obviously are trying to raise public distrust against science. But you say you are personally not anti-science. You are a liar Richard Ortiz. A Big. Fat. Liar.

• The biggest threat to public support of science are scientists themselves. Unfortunately. When scientists make grandiose claims for science that science was never meant to answer, e.g. the atheism of Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris, then public trust in science wanes. (My first reaction about Sam Harris was “How did this two-bit hick-from-the-sticks get published?” after reading one of his books that was so full of logical fallacies—I studied logic—that it negated the message he wanted to impart. I was later shocked to find that he has a PhD in a scientific field.).

• Again scientists—their hubris in thinking that they alone have all the knowledge. If it weren’t for a doctor who looked at the epidemiological study done by a couple of housewives, would we know about Lyme disease? So a little humility may be in order?

• Scientists—who have been willing to prostitute themselves for questionable crusades. An example are the scientists who worked for the tobacco industry to claim that cigarettes are not unhealthy. Is not the same thing happening with genetic modification (GM) of crops? I’ve studied genetics so I have enough information to be suspicious, but not enough for proof either way. But if given the choice, I won’t eat GM foods. Is that why Monsanto is fighting so hard to keep us from knowing? Are they fighting so hard because they know GM foods are not safe? That they are fighting so hard raises suspicions.

• Scientific fraud—this is now becoming so common that lay people are catching on.

When scientists themselves destroy trust in science, they open a vacuum that charlatans and conspiracy theorists rush to fill.

I personally am not anti-science, having studied even several upper level science courses as an undergraduate in college. But I’m dismayed by the number of scientists who make claims concerning which beliefs are “scientific” when they aren’t, who then with religious fervor persecute those who disagree with those pseudo-scientific beliefs.

There is no higher threat to our existence. We have no other place to go. We must face the dangers to our planet’s climate head on and brush aside any elements that would attempt to stop or retard that effort. If need be, at some point, a Stalinist approach may be appropriate. If nothing else works to shut down anti-science, anti-climate change fifth columnists (because that’s what they really are), then I would back that up.

We are no longer in a debate. We are in a struggle to save our planet. That’s what’s different about this issue. The time to entertain them is over. They need to get shut down. The sooner, the better.

But by effectively publishing their comments on the online websites of magazines which have a good reputation of sticking to real science (Popular Science, New Scientist etc) these ideas are given some implicit authenticity and backing.