Disagreeing with someone's politics and saying "my disagreement should be listened to because being a scientist makes me an authority" is misusing your scientific credentials.
It sounds as if you expect me to disagree with that, but I've no idea why.
(Did you think I was claiming that the people Motl is criticizing were making that claim but not misusing their scientific credentials? I wasn't, and in fact my opinion is almost exactly the opposite: they weren't making quite that claim -- see below -- but what they did say still amounts to misusing their scientific credentials.)
I agree that at one point in Motl's post he argues that the scientists he's disagreeing with have misused their scientific credentials. But most of his post...
Another month, another rationality quotes thread. The rules are: