Expert credibility in climate change, as told by expert snarks

Expert credibility in climate change
an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS)

Just to make sure I have this correctly:

People who study climate like to have an income.
The income comes mostly from the government.
The government "grants" income if the answer is what they want (not being scientists, facts and evidence are not an issue of consequence to politics and revenue).
If you don't have the right answer, you don't get grants (economic forcing?).
If you don't get grants, you don't get published.
Leading to fewer grants, thereby having negative feedback on "prominence," reputation and credibility.
Or you go study something else because food and shelter are good things.
Therefore, you aren't qualified to debate the matter, having failed to develop relevant expertise, like railroad engineering for example.

Do I have this right? Just checking.



Also, just to point out, the authors:

"Expert credibility in climate change"

   1. William R. L. Anderegga,1,
   2. James W. Prallb,
   3. Jacob Haroldc, and
   4. Stephen H. Schneidera,d,1

   1.
      aDepartment of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305;
   2.
      bElectrical and Computer Engineering, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada M5S 3G4;
   3.
      c William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Palo Alto, CA 94025; and
   4.
      dWoods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305

With respect to 3 and 4, given the forcing and feedback discussed above:

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Uh, riiiiiight...
I'd like to see where the advertising dollars for PNAS come from, as well...

But if you don't hold the proper credentials necessary to avoid the client denier tag or climate worshiper for that matter, have no fear. You can always publish some trivial self serving article in PNAS heaping scorn on your scientific colleagues. I'm sure that will take you far in the cocktail party circuit.

Look, I'm not a scientist, I'm a policy wonk. But if I were, I would be irate that my profession was being drug into some sort of "scientifically credible" game of mud-slinging. Quite frankly, you are eating your young. No matter which side you are on, I would think that ostracizing this particular crowd of propagandists from your halls and labs would be the first order to re-establishing your credibility as independent observers of the world around you. I might call them scientist deniers. This is pure snark parading around behind the appearance of analysis. For shame.