See how the left tries to politicize science and stifle dissenting points of view in academia: Meet Thomas Bonnicksen, a Texas A&M University professor emeritus in forest science and paid advisory board member of the industry group the Forest Foundation. Bonnicksen's big sin: He supports selective cutting of trees in national forests.

He has testified before Congress and written op-ed pieces that rankled enviros. Not content to rebut Bonnicksen's arguments, four academics wrote an "open letter to the media" last month assailing Bonnicksen's character and suggesting that editors think twice before publishing his work.

The four professors, led by Philip W. Rundel, a UCLA professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, essentially accused Bonnicksen of holding views that "fall far outside the mainstream of scientific opinion" and wrongly identifying himself as a visiting professor at UC Davis. UC, the letter noted, sent Bonnicksen a "'cease and desist' letter demanding that he not use their name."

I'll get to the mainstream-science angle later, but first a word on the personal smearing of Bonnicksen. The four-prof letter failed to mention that Bonnicksen had received an e-mail from a UC Davis faculty member that told Bonnicksen to call himself a visiting professor.

"In my naivety, I thought everything went through. I always thought it was appropriate," UC Davis professor Michael Barbour -- who, according to the Los Angeles Times, is also on the Forest Foundation board -- told me. Another Davis professor apologized to Bonnicksen, who no longer calls himself a UC Davis visiting professor.

The four-prof letter also argued that Bonnicksen's "academic record is weak, consisting largely of letters to the editor and op-ed articles." But, as 10 academics wrote in support of Bonnicksen, "his research in forest science spans decades and has been published widely in peer-reviewed scientific journals, reports and books." Oops. Rundel forgot to mention the peer-reviewed articles.

"If you look at the last 10 or 20 years, they're in the lowest of low journals. Peer-reviewed is pushing it," Rundel responded.

Now who is misrepresenting facts? Most galling was the Rundel letter's reference to Bonnicksen's "misrepresentation of factual material" -- without a single specific fact that Bonnicksen was supposed to have fudged. You see, the four professors wrote, "there is no scientific support for Dr. Bonnicksen's ideas of forest management." They must have figured that if they say they represent the mainstream, they don't need facts.

When I asked Rundel for an example, he said that Bonnicksen was wrong to write in a September piece in the San Jose Mercury News that there are at least 896 Pacific fishers (a weasel-like animal) in the Sequoia National Monument. A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service letter estimated their number to be fewer than 500 in a nearby larger area. Continued...