Well, your deduction was unsound. And continues to be unsound. You can critique anything as long as you know you can be wrong too.

> Yes yes. What's "normative" is now "political" (for some reason), and my standard is also "political" and therefore is not relevant.

You're hand-waving. Your stance is political but not irrelevant. Your stance is philosophical (resting on chosen assumptions) and not empirically irrefutable.

Not acknowledging that is why you fail to convince.

You've made this argument about you and your ability to "catch" people. You have no argument that stands on its own construction.

Having read through this whole discussion, and as an outsider: they're approaching this from a much stronger and consistent position than you. This is most obvious given how far you've moved the goalposts along the way.

What is your point man? Can you state simply? Is it that cutting funding for "science" is bad, without exception?