But somehow, the anti-industrialists are never painted with the brush of bias.

And there we have it: Scientists who report data regarding climate change and associate it with man-made causes are (spooky music, with lots of reverb in the voiceover) Anti-Industrialists!. Even if, in the course of their paper, they do not discuss mitigation proposals. Thus, so are the publications that print their papers, and the editorial boards of those publications, and the scientific organizations (such as AAAS) which sponsor them.

That's a rather broad tar brush in your hand, Tom... not that we haven't seen it there many times before.

...when publications like "Science" are quoted as the Word of God by environmentalists and others...

What's being quoted are the papers, which happen to appear in Science or Nature. There's no denying that they're the 500-lb gorillas of scientific journalism, and I would remind you that scientists, just like authors of any other form of words-in-a-row, try as hard as they can to be published in the journals with the most prestige among their peers. Those two publications have had centuries of practice to build that prestige... But, what counts is the validity of the content of the individual papers.

That's the only thing that should count to other scientists.

What's ironic is that I am often faced with the argument that "your source is biased, so I'm not going to look at your data." To be fair, if you are getting information on oil supplies from an oil company, it wouldn't hurt to keep the salt shaker handy.

The way I see it -- and I don't read every thread, by a long shot -- you're just as likely to be faced with the argument that "your source is merely another opinion you found on the Net." In fact, that's the case here, too... but that's immaterial. You're willing to "keep the salt handy" for the petroleum industry, but completely unwilling to accept climatological data that may result from the combustion of petroleum, because that's "anti-industrialist".

The article quoted four different scientists complaining about the lack of objectivity in certain--not all, but certain--influential venues in the scientific community. Shrug it off if you want.

Thanks, I will -- and so should you. The operative word is complaining, without substantiation.

And yes. Somebody who isn't sure about global warming is EXACTLY the same as someone who doesn't believe in evolution. Cripes.

My, that was mature...

But you've subtly changed the subject again. "Somebody who isn't sure about global warming being manmade" is not the same person as somebody who denies even the possibility that it is... and that's who I was talking about. What I said in my last post was (verbatim cut-and-paste): Their tactics and methodology are nearly indistinguishable. The latest crop of anti-evolutionists create artificial "doubts" about the validity of evolutionary theory, with special pleading and the "watchmaker" fallacy, then exploit the confusion they've caused. The people who say "There is no global warming -- and if there is, it has no man-made causes" exploit similar confusion among the undecided.

The difference -- and it's a big one -- is that, in the environmental case, the Deniers have at their disposal the bully pulpit of the US Government, the funding sources of polluting industries, and the ability to politicize the issue at will, with name-calling like "anti-industrialist."

If -- and I say "if" on purpose -- any component of global climate change can be unquestionably attributed to man-made causes, mitigation may be (and already has been, by such as the current presidential administration) be politically characterized as "anti-industrial". That, frankly, is hysteria. To be effective, mitigation must be anti-status-quo... but if industry weren't so loudly denying, they might be able to listen, and turn the necessary change to their advantage.