Shun the heretic!

[Balog]

/r/science bans "climate change" "deniers." Cause nothing says free and open discourse like vilifying and banning your opponents. http://grist.org/climate-energy/reddits-science-forum-banned-climate-deniers-why-dont-all-newspapers-do-the-same/

[Sindawe]

Much as I enjoy /r/science on reddit.com, it has as much relationship with actual process of science and its reporting as The WWF has with wrestling as a sport.

[brimic]

The end result was a disservice to science and to rational exploration, not to mention the scholarly audience we are proud to have cultivated. When 97 percent of climate scientists clergy agree that man is changing the climate the earth is flat and is located at the center of the Universe, we would hope the comments would at least acknowledge if not reflect such widespread consensus. Since that was not the case, we needed more than just an ad hoc approach to correct the situation.

[MechAg94]

The sad thing is that the huge consensus was really a lie to begin with.  At the time, they could have gotten a reasonably good number straight up.  They didn't have to fudge the question and the pool of "scientists", but they did anyway and all the believers ran with it. 

Never mind that the idea of consensus and agreement is sort of the anti-thesis of the scientific method.  If your data and conclusions are good, why the need for evasion and why try to shut down debate?