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> You do it by having models with proven track records of correct predictions Yes. And the process by which one conceives, tests, refines, reviews with peers,

• pdonis 5y ago
  > the process by which one conceives, tests, refines, reviews with peers, and converges on settled models and practice as in engineering is one of consensus. No, it isn't. It's one of testing and evaluating the results. That is an objective process; it does not require consensus. If I have signed off as the engineer of record on a bridge, and someone asks me for the basis of my doing so, I'm not going to say, well, I had a consensus. I'm going to show them my measurements and calculations. The same goes for models. If someone asks why I believe that the structural engineering model I used to design the bridge is valid, I'm not going to say, well, the consensus of engineers says it's valid. I'm going to point to its track record of past correct predictions. > Like, again, the consensus that smoking is bad for you, right? I don't believe smoking is bad for me because there's a consensus. I believe it because I've looked at the evidence and how it was gathered and used my own judgment and common sense. (Plus the fact that just the smell of cigarettes, when my dad and grandmother smoked them while I was a kid, made me feel ill.) That's what every citizen of a free society should be doing.
• pdonis 5y ago
  > Like, again, the consensus that smoking is bad for you, right? As far as shoving some idea down my throat, the fact that society shoved bans on smoking down everyone's throat did not affect me personally at all, because I don't smoke and have never had any desire to. To the extent I saw any effect, it was less smoke in public areas, which of course was one of the stated reasons for it in the first place, and which of course I consider an improvement, taken in isolation and not considering any of the broader social effects. However, as Miss Manners once pointed out, the fact that society ended up having to do this at all is more a reflection on lack of manners than anything else. Up until the early 20th century when cigarettes started to be mass produced, smokers did not impose their habits on non-smokers; they smoked in separate rooms (or entire separate buildings, such as clubs) to avoid disturbing non-smokers with the smell, and wore special clothes, such as smoking jackets, so they wouldn't carry the smell back with them to non-smokers. In exchange, non-smokers agreed to allow smokers to have those separate places and not complain as long as smoking was confined to them. In other words, smokers and non-smokers both exercised reasonable manners when dealing with each other. At some point, though, the manners went away on both sides. Smokers got more and more insistent on smoking wherever they went, with no regard for non-smokers, and non-smokers got more and more insistent on pointing out how unhealthy smoking was, and since the unhealthiness was now being imposed on non-smokers through things like second-hand smoke, the non-smokers' case got a lot stronger and harder to ignore. Finally, society said enough is enough, and used the studies on the health impacts of smoking as the rationale to bring in the power of government. In other words, this example is actually not a good one as an argument for "consensus" being a good basis for forcing people to accept something, because even though the medical "consensus" was used as the excuse, it wasn't the real reason society accepted smoking bans. The real reason was that the implicit agreement, based on manners, between smokers and non-smokers had broken down, and once it became a matter of open conflict, the non-smokers simply outnumbered the smokers. In other words, it was a case of might makes right. The side of might happens to have been the "right" side in this particular case, as far as the medical aspect goes, but when that happens, it's just luck; it's not something you can depend on.