I would also like to second the anon. comment above … We should also consider the case of poor Ronald Fisher, one of the few scientists brave enough to stand up to the tobacco hysterics. His common-sense theory that it was cancer that causes smoking was roundly denigrated by the smoking alarmists … even today his opposition to the alarmists still brings discredit to his name.

I agree that the persecution of these brave pro-tobacco scientists is so similar to the unfair persecution of the climate change realists that the comparison simply cannot be ignored.

Without wanting to drag you into the smoking debate, it’s worth remebering that there were plenty of dissenting voices in the 1970s and 80s pointing out that the case against tobacco was far from watertight, and that an apparent association between smoking and cancer is not at all the same thing as a cause. The eminent psychologist and statistician Professor Hans Eysenck was one such, and found to his cost the penalties for questioning a scientific ‘consensus’.

Then there was Dr William Whitby, author of ‘The Smoking Scare De-bunked’. Dr Whitby even uncovered evidence that smoking may actually be beneficial (brought together in his book ‘Smoking is Good for You’). Unfortunately, he was vilified on the grounds that he had receved financial support from Philip Morris – just as scientists who question the global warming scare are vilified if they have received much-needed funding from the fossil fuel industry – as you have described so eloquently elsewhere on your blog.

The parallels between these two episodes of hysteria based on bogus and politically motivated scientific ‘consensus’ are simply too strong to be ignored – but this time round the stakes are of course much higher.

The parallel Anon has drawn with the tobacco lobby is an interesting one. The links between smoking and cancer are, of course, well established. Lucas appears to be claiming that the links between industrial chemicals and cancer are equally established. Yet when we asked her press office (twice) for the supporting data, they have been unable to furnish us with it. That is because if it exists – and we doubt it very much – it is not what Lucas says it is. So who is doing the ‘tobacco-science’ here?

I do wonder what this has to do with climate, though? I worry that your eagerness to have a go at Dr Lucas and her ilk you may become distracted from the more urgent task of exposing the so-called ‘global warming’ conspiracy. That’s where the real danger to freedom and economic growth lies – so carry on hitting those ‘peer reviewed’ scientists where it hurts!