November 3, 2015
Climate denialism harms speculative science
Tweet I want to follow up on Eli’s comment below that "There is a place between blogs, arXiv and Science for really speculative papers, but the authors need to strongly defend themselves." Yes, and Hansen’s paper is properly occupying that place, assuming it can stay defended. But then, think about a speculative paper that went for the mirror-opposite side of the spectrum, saying "what if we’ve been wrong about everything about climate change and here’s a negative feedback mechanism previously undiscovered that will safely limit things." Let’s further assume this turns out not to be a Galileus paper but a Bozo paper , as seems likely. The normal consequences of publishing something that’s wrong is bent, by denialism
