At Daily Kos, David Brin posted a nice, meta rebuttal to one of the central assertions of climate skeptics: that anthropogenic global warming is some mass conspiracy within the discipline of climate science, a solid wall of group think that none of the field's scientists dare to cross. As Brin observes:
This uniformity of craven venality has to include even the ambitious postdocs and recently-tenured junior professors who, in every other field, sift constantly for some flaw in the current paradigm in order to go gunning after the big boys and thus make a reputation. What, even the Young Guns are sellouts? Even the paladins of skeptical enquiry are conspiring together in a grand cabal to... ...to what? Ah, now the story gets even better. All the scientists and post-docs are colluding to foist this scam, in order to win a few ten-thousand dollar grants. This loose-change-grubbing, paradigm slavery is cited to explain the GCC imbroglio -- while the oilcos and petroprinces, who operate major propaganda outlets and have TRILLIONS staked in the status quo... they have no agenda at all.
The whole post is worth a read.
