We saw this coming from a mile away. After running letters supporting the notion that humans are causing climate change, the Oklahoman runs a letter by Gary Proctor of Houston (?!?! Are they out of Oklahomans?), who argues that "throughout history are found copious examples of scientific consensus being wrong." And of course, he's right. That is how science works. Mr. Proctor cites the excellent example of researchers Barry Marshall and Robin Warren, who challenged conventional theory regarding the causes of stomach ulcers. (His example of Einstein is actually less compelling; at only the largest scales does Newtonian gravity break down; it hardly "eviscerated the previous consensus.")
But in their discussion of Marshall and Warren, Nature makes a good point: Achieving science's highest accolade shows how the attitude of the scientific community can switch from ridicule to reward if a idea that bucks current wisdom can be backed up by hard evidence. This is where the climate science denialists-- and the creationist crowd-- lose. If there is hard evidence for your contrarian ideas, you will eventually win out. Indeed, the example of Marshall and Warren demonstrates that! There is no grand conspiracy to keep out alternative ideas. However, the ideas have to have merit.
The editors of the Oklahoman don't want to talk about that, though. Instead, they just want to plant that seed in the minds of their clueless thralls that anti-climate science is perfectly valid even if no one in mainstream science seems to agree. In fact, if you spin it right, as Mr. Proctor tries to do, the anti-climate change crowd is like Einstein.
It's dishonest, but that's OK for the Oklahoman, as long as it pushes their plutocrat/theocrat agenda.
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