[DonHopkins]

You failed to prove she was "not allowed to speak" by posting a link to a video of her literally SPEAKING in front of Congress.

Did somebody interrupt her, and that's the best proof you can come up with of your assertion "There are highly trained scientists who don't fully support the party line, and they are not allowed to speak."

Being highly criticized by your peers is not the same as not being allowed to speak.

Do you have any better examples of scientists who were not allowed to speak -- perhaps a scientist who hasn't actually testified in front of Congress on live national television, written an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, boasts of having a total of 12,000 citations of her publications, and a blog that gets on average about 12,000 ‘hits’ per day, and 300-400 comments?

Or is that all you've got?

[mistermann]

It's interesting that even though I wrote "I suppose (sigh) that I must pre-emptively add that no, indeed, she wasn't in fact literally prevented from speaking", the main rebuttal to my post is that she isn't literally prevented from speaking.

Here, let's try a different approach: would you be willing to admit that in human society there is this behavior where peer pressure is sometimes used to persuade people to behave in one way or another? Please note that I am not asking you if that is the case here (that would be my next question), at this point I am simply asking if you are willing to admit that it is a legitimate phenomenon?

[DonHopkins]

You should have made an argument that was literally true in the first place, instead of preemptively disclaiming your argument in the next paragraph.

Don't move the goalposts. Explain and defend your original argument by defining exactly what you mean by "speaking", if not literally "speaking", and listing the names of highly trained scientists who are not allowed to "speak" because they don't support the party line.

[mistermann]

The mainstream assertion is that the scientific community is in 98% comprehensive (!) agreement on the matter of climate change, and the time for discussion is over.

My assertion is that this is an untrue statement.

PS: Why didn't you answer my question?

[DonHopkins]

You still didn't define what you mean by "not allowed to speak", and you didn't list any more names.

[Chris2048]

> by defining exactly what you mean by "speaking", if not literally "speaking"

conventions already exist.

If I say "99% of cats prefer whiskers", this needn't mean that of a worldwide population of 12,000 cats, exactly 11,880 prefer whiskers. It's understood as a statistical statement.

If I hold a gun to your head and tell you not to speak, it is understood you are not being allowed to speak, despite the fact that you are still able to do so. "not allowed" can conventionally mean "influenced in speaking freely".

In this case, whatever the standard of "not allowed" is, we don't need a formal definition when we have the actual example to hand; The implication here is no due respect is given to the scientist because they have an opposing view, marginalising opposition (e.g other scientists will not be keen to get the same treatment, and so less likely to speak up).

You have the rose to smell, there's no need to argue it's name.