I'm glad you selected this topic. I've been trying to parse my conflicting thoughts on the matter, and I haven't come to any conclusions.

For example, consider the politics of the climate change debate. Rational debate would require people to examine facts, make judgments about what is important, and come to a consensus. Policy should be derived from this process. However, in the climate debate, the Koch Brothers sponsored a non-stop barrage of bullshit and paid political influence to create a false policy debate that isn't supported by science.

As far as scientists are concerned the debate is over. Unfortunately, the losing side continues to push their false ideas through a few scientists who've sold their professional integrity to provide a veneer of plausibility to the idea that climate change is not human induced. What should the reaction be to these scientists among the scientific community?

The scientists who sold out have been ostracized by the scientific community. They have been "cancelled". They are relegated to making paid appearances and speeches for their polluting masters. Further, in states like California where I live, anyone on the political right who posits that climate change is not caused by humans is similarly cancelled. They complain that the political left is stifling debate, cancelling them. And they are right. And they should be cancelled.

But I also feel the left is right to do this. I believe the scientists are right to cancel their sell-out colleagues. In the same way the radicals who kicked out the people who dared to express a view contrary to the consensus of the group were right in as much as they were acting to preserve the integrity of the group.

Try joining into a fundamentalist church and say you don't believe in God, and you would be rightly ostracized because the group is bound together by a different belief. At some level "cancelling" is appropriate. That's why the Puritans used it.

Our current political environment fosters an environment of cancellation. Factions no longer accept defeat, and they resort to pushing false narratives that induce the other side to cancel them. Everyone is trying to cancel everyone else. You even see it on Facebook among friends who cancel each other for not sharing their religious or political views.

I don't know what the solution is, but it's becoming a deeper and more widespread problem.