Beyond the Pale-Green

In a piece at Tech Central Station, the organizers of an American Enterprise Institute conference on climate change are claiming that certain scientists have been pressured into withdrawing from panels by activists who don't want to "legitimize" global warming contrarians.

Now, I'll confess, I'm one of those folks that also finds it just a bit suspicious that the "contrarian" position is most often articulated in the publications of free-market tanks who find the view politically congenial, rather than in peer-reviewed journals. But refusal to debate scarcely seems like a way to advance the ball. After all, on the issue that the scientist they cite uses as an analogy—evolution vs. creationism—biologists are typically perfectly happy to have a chance to rebut the creationist case when given the opportunity.