Right. I agree with all of that. My position is that I defer to the majority of scientists on the topic. The argument I'm making is a bit different, though:
No amount of supporting evidence renders a topic exempt from scrutiny.
Climate science is solid, to my knowledge. And while I think most of the people who want to see it pulled down from the pedestal are wackos, intellectual humility demands that they be allowed to continue to try. Not with the same tired tactics – they shouldn't be able to DDoS debate with the same old crap. But to the extent that people can come up with novel, testable angles.. the question shouldn't be forbidden.
There's subjectivity here. IMO there are good faith and bad faith attempts to challenge eg climate science. The overwhelming majority are in bad faith. But the good faith versions of the question should not only go unpunished, but be encouraged.
It doesn't seem to go that way in practice. Certain lines of inquiry are de-facto forbidden in science, at least informally.
