re: #295 Walter L. Newton

But it does end at skepticism, right?

Not at all, what your question misses is the difference between legitimate skepticism and politically or dogma motivated crap. Then there is stuff that is just plain wrong.

Suppose the reviewers were completely off their nut one day decided to let a “Earth is Flat paper” get published. Are the authors of that paper “legitimate skeptics” of round earth theory, or are they just crazy?

This issue with the various denier spheres, is that anyone who says anything that could even remotely be construed as something they want to hear, is automatically granted the status of modern Galileo bravely talking truth to power. The fact that the fellow is a weatherman who got published in a 5th tier journal, and that he was widely debunked does not matter to the so called “skeptics.” In fact, more often than not, he did not even say what the skeptics think he said. I can not easily count the number of times some one has posted something here that upon quick review was saying the exact opposite of what the deniers hoped it would say.