“The other part is making educated - and very, very, clever - guesses. Both Copernicus and Einstein did that...and look where it’s got us.”
Yes, inspired hypothesis are what move us forward, particularly those that are willing to go against what is considered “consensus”.
The hypothesis of both Copernicus and Einstein were eminently testable. What is alarming about the “Catastrophic Climate Change Establishment” is that they demand that we spend trillions of dollars, alter our entire economy and lifestyle, and place most of our lives under near totalitarian political control long before their hyperbolistic hypothesis are tested.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. That is why UFOs are not considered established science. Those who push catastrophic climate change as fact are demanding that we believe them without any proof. If we demand proof, they say “but then it will be too late!”
But we never know what it will be “too late” for, but I suspect it means that it will be too late for them to seize political control.
Actually, they weren't at the time they were proposed. I think it was more than a century before Copernicus was confirmed. As for the 1915 general theory of relativity, confirmation supposedly came in 1922...but subsequent work showed that was wrong.
I'm working on replies to the rest of the stuff...but slowly ( :) ). A great Katharine Hepburn-Cary Grant classic takes precedence.