Thank you for diving into these issues. I agree with a lot of your thinking, in particular what looks like a category error made by PAM. At least in principle, one's beliefs and one's science are two different realms. A good scientist hypothesizes, experiments, and draws conclusions based on experiments. A good scientist considers those conclusions provisional, pending further experiments. A good scientist can draw a distinction between a provisional conclusion and a belief, essentially "what does science tell me?" versus "what am I inclined to believe?" Perhaps this distinction is somehow blurred for PAM, with him not being a scientist himself. Perhaps PAM doesn't ask "which of these two "personas" is the scientist in question speaking from?"