"but an open-minded scientist would say that perhaps there is something going on, but until we see some evidence we have no idea what it actually is."
And any open minded person should also recognize that there perhaps is something going on (beyond the scope of our science) and so a definitive 'no' is just as refutable by logic as a definitive 'yes'.
The politics of this debate are probably so overwhelming as to make an unheated discussion of it all but impossible.