Of course we as rational people think that it's up to him to prove hsi theories, not up to us to disprove them. However, is this really how the "rest of the world" will view it? I think that most of them will--if they don't hear a resounding chorus of contrary fact from the exploratory community--either give credence to Corsi and his ilk because it's what they want to believe or--even more likely--simply shrug their shoulders and chalk it up to another scientific dispute that has no bearing on their private lives. That's the issue I am trying to broach. I don't care one whit what Corsi cares; he's only one man. I care how many people he manages to drag down with him because THEIR collective belief/inaction may have a profound effect on me.

The experiment has already been done.  Prior to WW2 the origins of oil were not well understood; prospecting for oil often required a divining rod and a lot of faith that God was on your side.  If you started with the premise of abiotic oil you went out of business pretty fast.  Noting the geology of where drilling was successful lead to biotic theories of oil creation, not the other way around.

Perhaps the Corsian response would be that the abiotic oil is so deep that until recently we didn't have the capability of finding it, which would also burden abiotic proponents with explaining why these deep abiotic deposits don't migrate closer to the surface over billions of years.

The truth is that I wouldn't be surprised if abiotic processes generate trace amounts of hydrocarbons.  But I favor occasionally poking at the obvious holes in the Corsians argument but ultimately letting them come to us - if abiotic oil will save us from the peak, where is it?  Just find one 100 million barrel field in basalt with no sedimentary source rock beneath it and we'll let him sit with the grown-ups.  No Mr. Corsi, deepwater Brazil doesn't qualify.