The problem is not epistemological conservatism in general. The problem is that in this case climate uniformity is (rather arbitrarily) assigned as the null hypothesis, which leads to systematic underestimation. This is conveniently (and, we are to believe, coincidentally) in line with political and business pressures facing science faculty, namely accusations of 'alarmism.'

As for fantasizing about punishing people for observing bias in science (again using Feynman's own test) by taking away their iPads and vaccines, that's not even worth responding to, let alone an argument.