Dr David Evans claims new climate change discovery

[Pyrrho]

Oh look Chuck, anyone who challenges the established scientific theory is viewed as a crackpot - think Semmelweis for example. The interesting thing about Semmelweis that people often ignore is that he didn't instruct hist students to wash their hands - they already did that. He specifically said soap and water was not good enough to remove the (invisible) cadaverous particles that he hypothesised were poisoning patients in the maternity ward, and that the medical students needed to wash their hands with a chlorinated lime solution instead!! I'll bet you don't wash your hands in chlorinated-lime, Chuck. It was around 30 years until germ theory was developed and accepted, and even then I can point you to scientific peer-review papers that urge the need for caution when assuming generalisability (applying to other medical conditions what has been 'proven only of some'). We look back on them now - and most people see a one-sided point of view that shows the scientific establishment resisting change. OF COURSE THEY RESIST CHANGE! That's what they're supposed to do. But challengers are supposed to be able to present evidence that can advance science - science only advances through falsification.

While some visionaries have been mistakenly treated as crackpots, the world would grind to a complete stop and then go off the rails while reversing if every crackpot is accorded the consideration given to visionaries.

Indeed.  The vast majority of the people who have been regarded as crackpots by the scientific community have been crackpots.  It is a rare thing for a scientific genius to come along and be first thought of as a crackpot.  But nearly every crackpot likes to compare themselves with those rare exceptions rather than to acknowledge the fact that the vast majority of people who are regarded as crackpots are rightly regarded as crackpots.