Yes, because they’ve never been given a chance to do that until now. ( /sarc )

I understand that Neunzoller’s proposal is a well-intentioned one, but I speak as someone who has followed the debate for several years now, hearing so-called skeptics incessantly complaining about how they are being suppressed. Check any story about climate change in a newspaper’s blog that allows comments. While “skeptics” are no longer the majority commenters, they still hold forth at length. And as books like Merchants of Doubt make clear, there is a core of professional “skeptics” with a long history of opposition to a variety of well-supported scientific findings.

“The scientific society is no different from the greater society in general, in that opinions are formed and consensus reached for no reason other than adherence to the group. Groupthink is a parasite that science is unfortunately infected with. The only way to remove this parasite is a science court based on due process.”

There used to be a science court; I remember hearing some of its “trials” broadcast. I’m not referring to the Disney show that ran for one year in the late 1990s. This was much longer ago. A little online research found this reference:

http://law.unh.edu/risk/vol4/spring/mazur.htm

It reminds me that Professor Arthur Kantrowitz first proposed this, and got it organized during the Ford administration. I’d like to see it revived, and made a means of resolving the public dispute over climate change. Now that two separate groups of scientists are organizing to counter the climate-change “skeptics,” that may actually happen.

Global warming/climate change, (whatever you want to call it) hasn’t consistently predicted anything as being caused by human action that can be proven to be true (that I know of) and yet we have politicians that want to pass laws restricting our freedom of action based on a theory that hasn’t reliably predicted any changes (future or past).

I would say that under these circumstances, that at the very least the proponents of man caused global warming and their opponents have a public forum where we can hear the evidence FROM THE ACTUAL SCIENTISTS INVOLVED on either side and not policitians.

If I’m to sacifice my quality of life for cap ‘n trade, or some other violation of my property rights, I’d like to be reasonably assured that it’s for a valid reason and not just a bunch of ideological, left wing, anti-corporate, anti-human life clap trap.

-DC

But as you pointed out, it’s a tricky thing to do. Science is much harder to judge in court than say, a murder, simply because science is much more complicated than a murder can ever be. Unfortunately, most publicized hearings have a habit of turning into bloodfests where people try to win over other people with psychological tactics and fear-mongering.

In short, I think a science court would be a good idea on paper, but very hard to carry out effectively in practice.