The New York Times’s “Dot Earth” blog today has a piece that, to its credit, notes that there is debate in climate science. It doesn’t give the debate its full due, but you take your small victories as they come with the Grey Lady.

Unfortunately, the tone of the piece is that debate may not be such a good thing, but instead makes science a messy business with all sorts of research discrediting the previously agreed upon facts. Yes, quite. Messrs. Galileo and Copernicus, phone your offices.

Worse, apparently, is that this is confusing the public about the need to save the planet. This is another way of saying what the researchers at Texas A&M reluctantly found: the more people learn about global warming, the less alarmed they are. Better to keep them ignorant. This nicely embodies modern science’s arrogant self-appointment as — viewed in the best light — arbiter of policy.

John Ray excerpts the item to take his swings over at Greenie Watch.