[Winniesboy]

This shows that advocates are not honest about the issue. I cannot allow myself to be engaged in a debate where the other side will not be honest.

True - but dishonesty is not, alas confined to one side of the argument. Anyone who supposes that this debate is without cynical manipulation, for political and other non-scientific motives, on all sides is naive, to say the least. It's equally wrong, at the other extreme, to assert that everyone involved on one side or the other is dishonest: there are honest, disinterested, objective scientists on all sides. The difficulty for those of us (and I'm sure, from your posts, that you're among this number) who try to keep our objectivity, with a mind open to persuasion by sound argument, is to know how to extract the wheat from the abundant chaff without personally verifying all the data.

[theBuckwheat]

>>
The difficulty for those of us (and I'm sure, from your posts, that you're among this number) who try to keep our objectivity, with a mind open to persuasion by sound argument, is to know how to extract the wheat from the abundant chaff without personally verifying all the data.
<<

Yes, exactly.

If the makers of Vioxx had given out millions in grants to researchers to fund studies to prove the safety of that drug, the academic community (along with their friends in the press) would automatically be skeptical if not outright reject the findings. They would smell an agenda that indicates a bias that disqualifies any serious discussion of the results.

What should we suspect about the "religion of peace" when every incidence of violence is only met with silence on the part of co-religionists who we are assured are "moderate"? It must be assumed that the silent ones really agree with the violence.

What should we suspect when the entire scientific community, which holds itself out as "open minded", "dedicated to scientific principles", "peer-reviewed", is likewise silent when California caps and limits CO2 emissions in the name of reducing Global Warming, way before the science is settled, let alone proven.

In both cases, the silence is deafening. In both cases, the mental alarms should be going off in the minds of people who really want to know what the truth of the situation is.

In my opinion, any climate scientist or academic who specializes in this field who is silent about the Kali law must have his honesty and commitment to scientific discipline called into question. Any one of these who sits on grant committees must resign simply because they have revealed their incestuous relationship with likeminded grant recipients.