One other point I should make: this isn't just about "someone" being wrong. It's about an author frequently cited by people in the LessWrong community on an important issue being wrong.

Indeed, I'm not sure I'd know about Taubes at all if not for the LessWrong community.

I've already mentioned Eliezer's "Correct Contrarian Cluster" as an example in another thread, but perhaps it would be helpful to mention other examples:

• In a thread where someone asked what the evidence in favor of paleo was, Taubes was the main concrete source that came up. Specifically, Luke mentioned Taubes as the person he's "usually" referred to on this question, without taking a stand himself and saying he didn't have time to evaluate the evidence personally.
• Sarah Constantin (commenter at Yvain's blog, author of reply to Yvain's non-libertarian FAQ, and I just learned a MetaMed VP) has cited Taubes a couple times partly to make a libertarian point.
• Jack bringing up Taubes in offline conversation
• Yvain's old blog had a review of Taubes which doesn't seem to be public right now, but which I remember as partly criticizing Taubes but also lauding him for things that now I don't think Taubes deserves credit for.

So Taubes was someone I could expect to see cited in the future when the issue of expert consensus gets discussed on LessWrong. In spite of all the people who didn't like these posts, I think I may have accomplished the goal of getting people to stop citing Taubes.