An axiom:

When someone tells you that "the debate is over" in any given area, you can generally assume that the person speaking is trying to gloss over the fact that the debate is very much alive.

Secondary axiom; the use of this phrase also tends to betray the fact that not only is the debate still ongoing, but the speaker's side is losing. Having lost in the arena of ideas, they're trying to win in the arena of public opinion.

Here's some information on global warming theory that demonstrates these axioms are operating quite well within the IPCC. Evidently, it turns out that those "historical" graphs of global temperature will generate the famous "hockey stick" graph even when fed noise for data.