Paul Hsieh has written a Letter-to-the-Editor of the WSJ about the disputed settleness of climate change.
If a respected MIT scientist like Mr. Lindzen argues that "the science isn't settled," and other scientists disagree, then doesn't the very dispute itself prove that the science isn't settled?Paul Hsieh
Sedalia, Colo.
The point is: dispute about how "settled" the science is implies that it isn't very "settled" at all... unless you're able to convince people that the dispute is being promoted by sources who have no place in the debate. That's what prominent climatologists were attempted to do, until their dishonest methods and manipulations were recently revealed thanks to the Climategate hacker.
(It's the fourth letter here, though the page's format is quite confusing. If you look at the underlying HTML you'll notice that Dr. Hsieh's letter is the only one that wasn't given an invisible anchor tag, making it impossible to link to the letter directly. Strange.)
"The science is settled" is a pretty empty rhetorical phrase which is unpopular among actual scientists, since of course there remain many disputed questions in climatology. However, certain questions are pretty much settled, which include
1) The greenhouse effect warms us
2) Concentration of greenhouse gasses have risen over 20th Century
3) Human activity contributed to that GHG increase.
4) Average global temperature rose over 20th Century
If the temperature increase is caused by the GHG increase, the prediction that reduced human output of GHG would halt or slow temperature increase is very likely.
Mr. Lindzen agrees with all 4 of those points, he just doesn't agree that the rise in GHG is an important component of the temperature rise. He doesn't argue very convincingly for any alternative theory.
I think you might wish to draw your assertion slightly more narrowly. The wars over calculus, Newton v Liebniz are an example of what might give you difficulty.