A Place to Stand

   The original statement was Heinlein's

A touchstone to determine the actual worth of an "intellectual" — find out how he feels about astrology.

   Many other quotes listed here.

But I am sure he would have applied the same reasoning to alleged catastrophic global warming. In both cases supporters claim it to be a science but in both cases they are unable to point to any clear evidence for the theory. Here is an article claiming astrology has an evidential basis and you will see it relies on the same sort of anecdotal tales, claims without evidence and post hoc redefinition of what is meant that the climate alarmists do.

   Both are pseudosciences as defined by Popper. That they produce no predictions that can be falsified (IE tested to find if they are false) or sometimes, as with Hansens's 1988 claim that we were going to see a temperature rise of 0.5 C worldwide,  get ignored when the prediction is found false - which doesn't prevent new prediction of the sort the customer wants. In astrology usually a prediction of love, happiness and wealth since the customer is a person and in "climate science" a prediction of disaster requiring more state power to provide protection, because the cuntomer is government.
     Other remarks by him which I think support the conclusion that he would have agreed that believers current catastrophic anthropogenic global warming is happening are, by definition, not intellectuals (ditto promoters of the fraud who may not be believers, who may be smarter but have no respect for intellect):   Most "scientists" are bottle washers and button sorters.

   .Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire - What are the facts? Again and again and again — what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what "the stars foretell," avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable "verdict of history" — what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!
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One can judge from experiment, or one can blindly accept authority. To the scientific mind, experimental proof is all important and theory is merely a convenience in description, to be junked when it no longer fits. To the academic mind, authority is everything and facts are junked when they do not fit theory laid down by authority
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Reason is poor propaganda when opposed by the yammering, unceasing lies of shrewd and evil and self-serving men.
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When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, "This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know," the end result is tyranny and oppression, no matter how holy the motives. Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything — you can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him.