Richard Lindzen, who is perhaps the most heavily credentialed skeptic, has compared himself to Galileo.

There are also those whose work is misquoted, who are interviewed for documentaries & have clips used that misrepresent their material, whose questioning of a detail/specific issue is inflated to make it seem as if they question the underlying science.

Yes, there are the egomaniacal and the unwilling skeptics.

1. You’re welcome.

2. Visit The Climate Project … a few clicks can get a live presenter who was trained by Gore (but brings their own knowledge/perspective/style to the table) to come to give a presentation.

I think that this isn’t a “fun or profit” category because many of these folks actually spend lots of money publishing tracts that are simply put in the rubbish tip, lose relationships over their obsessions, and actually live quite paranoid existences. There is a bit of ego involved…often they argue that “They ignored Copernicus! They shut up Galileo! They didn’t believe Einstein!” I the UK these sorts of individuals are often treated a bit better, they become well-known cranks, and are listened to with knowing smirks.

I’m unsure if there are any folks in the Global Warming debate that fall into this category. But I sometimes wonder if a certain percentage of scientists should be expected to drift off into the extremisms of hyper-skepticism.

Another Type might be the “Unwilling Skeptic” who is actually pushed into being a spokesperson by others who have found something in their writings that might suggest criticism of the “dogma” to others. Again, I’m not familiar enough in the GW issue to think of someone. But one can find the work of Steven J. Gould vociferously cited out of context by Creationists (particularly his work on punctutaed-equilibrium). Thus someone who is interested in expanding and reformulating orthodox evolutionary theory becomes a prominent “evolution skeptic” (which is only somewhat true) and then an “evolution denier”.

Your rundown of types is definitely a good start; I’m a bit late to the discussion, but I’ll try to give it some more thought.

Forgot to say thanks for a great post. And, I will def pass on your link to Climate change Project

Sorry, I didn’t have any coherent thoughts on main topic of your post- skepticism, though I did read carefully.

I’m not sure if or how this fits into your framework- but, as far as getting the message out re: global warming, two things strike me from class discussions so far- and I think they’re intertwined-

One is the problem with “journalism”- the uh “fair and balanced” approach. This was particularly clear in a talk that Lawrence Krauss gave at the AEI, about science and anti-science (available in CSPAN archives). He was particularly referencing the “debate” about evolution vs. creationists, where to be “fair and balanced” TV news gives equal times to both sides, even though there is nothing equal about the validity of their arguments. This would also explain why the “skeptics” aka supposed scientists get more than their fair share of air time. Hey, it’s about ratings and entertainment value.

Another is with the “kill the messenger” aspect to this- trying to deny Gore’s message, invalidate it, by attacking at many different levels. Like the “carbon footprint” of his house. Or saying that “Inconvenient Truth” was “too much about Gore”. Invalidate the message, by attacking the messenger.

Or…some elitist dinner dish…Heh.

Considering it for a moment. Hmmm … Do you think that being called a “PoMo” might outrage some of the skeptic types?