There's a war of semantics afoot that really bugs the shit out of me. There are people who are "skeptical" about the dangers of GMO foods and there are people who are "skeptical" about the safety of cell phone radiation. There are people who are "skeptical" about climate change and there are people who are "skeptical" about the safety of vaccines. They're all "skeptics" but both sides like to say "I'm a 'skeptic,' you're a 'denier' or a 'moron' or a 'clueless ideologue'" when the fact of the matter is, "refusing to accept evidence at face value" is a problem that spans ideologies. The "vaccine skeptic" movement is an exact mirror image of the "climate skeptic" movement, except one is an idiot disease that afflicts liberals while the other is an idiot disease that afflicts conservatives. Pretending that one side is an idiot while the other is not doesn't show wisdom, it shows you're infected. Is there an overwhelming mountain of evidence that anthropocentric global warming is a real phenomenon? Absolutely. Is there an overwhelming mountain of evidence that vaccines are fundamentally safe? Absolutely. But tucking back into your corners and saying "fuck you you idiot" whenever someone says "prove it" helps nothing. "Skeptic" means "one who must be convinced" not "one who must be dismissed." It's particularly ironic to me that we're having this discussion under an article about Richard Muller's climate change analysis. Muller was one of the guys that pissed off everyone on the left because he should "know better." So here he goes, taking a bunch of right wing money, and coming to his own conclusions. And his conclusions agree with the mainstream. This man is a skeptic. By any reasonable understanding of the word. Anyone who disagrees does the whole of scientific method a disservice.