Here's a guest post from kiashu, in the form of a "Letter to the Editor" (or in this case, a journalist at The Age) about a review of Ian Plimer's pseudo-academic novel, "Heaven and Earth".

Gidday James Kirby,

You write in today's Age,

"Heaven and Earth is absurdly long - 500 pages, 2000 footnotes - with enough factual inconsistencies and ill-advised references to some ''loopy'' thinkers to give his critics plenty of ammunition." [http://www.theage.com.au/business/going-against-the-current-climate-20091024-he2t.html]

You then express surprise that he found it difficult to get his book published. As I understand it, you are primarily a financial journalist. Let's imagine then that someone who was not qualified in economics wrote a book critiquing modern economics, and it was full of "factual inconsistencies and ill-advised references to some "loop" thinkers", do you think that person would have difficulty in getting the book published?

Would that difficulty truly be a result of the author's "radical" views, or a result of their poor writing and research?

From your article, it does not appear that you've actually read his latest book. In your Age article, you are careful to note that you are not a scientist. However, you are a journalist, and a good journalist checks facts and references. That is after all the purpose of footnotes in any work with at least pretensions to academic worth: it lets you check for yourself.