[kergonath]

> a scientist can easily get smacked down for being "a climate change denialist" or an "antivaxer" or a similar unpalatable label way before the merits of their effort are evaluated.

Interestingly, I have more examples of the opposite: scientists being branded “climate alarmists” (even as their models consistently under-estimate global warming) or totalitarian control freaks (or some enlightened nonsense about being mindless followers of prominent Jewish people, very subtle that one) for saying that vaccines save lives.

Also, this has absolutely nothing to do with people getting actually killed or deported for their work, even though some loud mouths have a persecution complex.

[bryanrasmussen]

>scientists being branded “climate alarmists” (even as their models consistently under-estimate global warming)

the attacks come from different directions - climate alarmists attack comes from without the scientific community (political, corporate)

climate denialist or antivaxer attacks generally come from within the scientific community, generally from experts in the field from which results are being denied.

The people who then want to support climate denialism can then say the scientists are non-scientific because they are taking sides, providing another useful tool of attack.