Summary: So, you’re saying (1) Taubes is indeed prone to confirmation bias, as he pushes his Big Idea too far; and (2) Taubes isn’t a contrarian when it comes to cold fusion?
Disagreement: While Taubes may have been seduced by his Big Idea (as I wrote in the OP), I’m not sure the data you’ve cited are strong evidence of that. You’ve cited his “spending a lot of time defending those statements rather than reinforcing the more likely factual parts.” But perhaps the “more likely factual parts” don’t need so vigorous a defense because many people find them plausible already. Thus he spends more time on the parts many people find implausible.
This is evidence of confirmation bias, but I don’t think it’s very strong.
Summary: So, you’re saying (1) Taubes is indeed prone to confirmation bias, as he pushes his Big Idea too far; and (2) Taubes isn’t a contrarian when it comes to cold fusion?
Disagreement: While Taubes may have been seduced by his Big Idea (as I wrote in the OP), I’m not sure the data you’ve cited are strong evidence of that. You’ve cited his “spending a lot of time defending those statements rather than reinforcing the more likely factual parts.” But perhaps the “more likely factual parts” don’t need so vigorous a defense because many people find them plausible already. Thus he spends more time on the parts many people find implausible.
This is evidence of confirmation bias, but I don’t think it’s very strong.
Have I understood your point correctly?