Dosis, Attitude, and the Killing of Theories

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I have written this comment here: 

Often skeptics revert to the false argument that because CO2 is such a minute part of the atmosphere it could not possibly have a fatal effect on climate. In principle, it could (like an exceptionally strong poison). However, it is the argument that you advance, Pierre, that is correct. Unless the corresponding mechanism is sufficiently established, which it is not in the least, the thesis of "CO2's homoeopathic violence" lacks authority. Plus, of course, leaving many other significant factors out of consideration further disavows the unproven thesis of CO2's super-leverage.

By the way, what has made me highly skeptical of alarmists a long time ago is this: if you are really scared about something, you make sure you understand what goes on (say, someone tells you your house is burning, or a party turns up with the surprise claim that your house does not actually belong to you); you go out of your way to discern sense from nonsense, AND you jump at any evidence that indicates the problem is smaller than you thought or does not exist at all. If people are so scared about global warming, where are the hurrahs in the face of mitigating evidence? If anything, you would expect them to err on the side of optimism. What I observe instead is a growing propensity to accept flimsy "evidence", if only it is useful in upholding the prospect of Armageddon.

Typically when I challenge a fellow to back up his alarmism with evidence, people act in a way that shows the issue is not important enough to them personally; they simply claim that the media can't be lying, since a person claiming this — say the media — is culpable of subscribing to some sort of conspiracy theory. 

This is an argument as silly as claiming that evidence against CO2-alarmism cannot be true if the research had been financed by Big Oil. Government financing of alarmism is far larger than any private financing. 

Nobody should be prohibited from financing research, and the emphasis should be on the quality of the resultant findings and on their thorough criticism. When prejudices of the above kind become culturally and/or legally dominant, truth is in danger.

Truth is not found by prejudging who is or is not entitled to advancing an argument, but by assessing the quality of an argument, testing, corroborating or refuting it. In science one dismisses arguments, not people. Or as Sir Karl Popper used to say, in developing modern science mankind found a way to kill theories instead of people.