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> otherwise this is equivalent to saying that academic consensus can never be wrong No it is not. I said that the assumption must be that the consensus becomes
by funklute 4y ago
> otherwise this is equivalent to saying that academic consensus can never be wrong
No it is not. I said that the assumption must be that the consensus becomes less wrong over time, not that it is never wrong. Those are two very different statements.
- cwalv 4y agoOver how much time? Does "consensus" never make a wrong turn?
- funklute 4y agoWell, academic consensus usually takes a long time to build. And obviously it can take wrong turns (and there are plenty of examples of that historically, often due to work based on incomplete or wrong data - though arguably even if the academic consensus has been wrong on an absolute basis, it has often been "correct" in light of the available evidence). But nevertheless, it should be obvious today that (probabilistically) the best understanding of the world - for laymen - is achieved by trusting the academic consensus. Anything else quickly veers into anti-intellectual, conspirationist mumbo-jumbo.