Maxwell Believed in Backradiation

The concept of "backradiation", the fundamental postulate of CO2 alarmism, goes back to Prevost's Theory of Exchange (1791) retold in Maxwell's Theory of Heat (1871) as follows:

(p 240-241)

1. ...this character of the transfer of heat, that it passes from hotter to colder bodies, is true the same whether it is by radiation or conduction that the transfer takes place.
2. ...a cold body has no power of acting at a hot body at distance so as to cause it to emit radiations,
3. nor has a hot body any power to stop the radiation of a cold body.
4. ...it follows that if two bodies have the same temperature, the radiation emitted by the first and absorbed by the second, is equal in amount to the radiation emitted by the second and absorbed by the first during the same time.
5. The higher the temperature of a body, the greater the radiation is found to be, so that when the temperatures of bodies are unequal, the hotter body will emit more radiation than they receive from colder bodies, and therefore on the whole, heat will be lost by hotter bodies and gained by colder until thermal equilibrium is attained.

Prevost's theory of exchange from 1791, postulating "backradiation" from cold to hot, was thus picked up first by Maxwell, then by Planck and was then found to be the perfect argument for CO2 alarmism.

Let us scrutinize the logic of Maxwell motivation of two-way transfer expressed in points 2. and 3. above:

• Since a cold body cannot cause a hot body to emit more, a hot body cannot stop a cold body to emit.

Is this a valid scientific argument? Let's make a parallel:

• Since a fool cannot make a wise wiser, a wise cannot stop a fool telling nonsense.

This is the logic of the populism of the web, and so it may carry some truth.

But the following question present themselves:

• Does a similar populism govern physics? Is Maxwell's logic correct?
• Is Maxwell's argument itself populistic rather than scientific?
• Is Maxwell's reference to the authority of Prevost a valid scientific argument?

I have my answers, but I leave the questions open. It would certainly be very illuminating to listen to what a living physicist would say today. Is Prevost's Theory of Exchange still valid, and if so is there any evidence beyond that presented by Maxwell?