4 ms·

The author makes a few references to the idea of "scientific consensus", which I find curious. It's a phrase that I tend to cast aside as politically motivated.

The author makes a few references to the idea of "scientific consensus", which I find curious. It's a phrase that I tend to cast aside as politically motivated. Politicians in the climate change debate like to point to "scientific consensus" as a way of saying, "look, all these intelligent people whose work we personally don't understand agree, so they must be correct." But one tenant of scientific thought is that truth and factuality are not measures of an individual's or society's belief, but rather, they are discovered by experiments whose results can be replicated. > People distrust science when it conflicts with their valued beliefs, or when science suggests a solution or intervention that conflicts with their beliefs. People are happy to trust science when it does not conflict with their ideology or narrative. I agree, but those same people generally rationalize those views to themselves in the way Adams noted: by pointing at reasons to distrust science or scientists. They get caught up in issues like "climategate", they assert that results about medical science are distorted by financial pressures, etc. In short, the rationalizations of individuals who reject scientific results often point to the scientists behind the results, their interests and motivations, instead of the results themselves. This isn't exclusively true, but I think the tie in to the idea of "scientific consensus" is this: Perhaps science would be better served by a decreased emphasis on the individuals carrying out scientific research and increased emphasis on the results themselves.

blfr 12y ago
The hallmark of science is predictive power. Experiments, replication, peer review are all nice but optional. When you have a general enough theory, you don't need to re-do the exact same experiment. You may not need to experiment at all and get by on mere observation. (Just call it a "natural experiment" when pressed.)
- rpedroso 12y ago
  I don't think this is correct. Willingness to accept theories based on our limited understanding of the underlying facts and our observations has led to widespread, incorrect belief before. Descartes and Galileo accepted atomism because, based on their limited understanding of chemistry, it made sense. It wasn't until experiments like the cathode ray tube experiment and the gold foil experiment revealed more elementary particles and forced people to revise their beliefs. Philosophers of science like Karl Popper like to focus on falsifiability over induction precisely because we tend to become complacent in beliefs that don't tell the whole story and otherwise obscure more interesting, less intuitive underlying phenomena. I feel like, if we had it your way, we might still be atomists.
  - Dylan16807 12y ago
    No, because they predicted measurements that were wrong.
stdbrouw 12y ago
> But one tenant of scientific thought is that truth and factuality are not measures of an individual's or society's belief, but rather, they are discovered by experiments whose results can be replicated. Discovery and replication can be complex affairs though: was the experiment competently executed, was it interpreted the right way, did any attempt at replication properly replicate the conditions of the original, is there theory to go along with the experiment and how convincing and coherent is that theory, and so on and so on. And if there are points of disagreement, good luck trying to figure out who is right without any domain knowledge. So, yes, ultimately, as a non-scientist in a lot of cases your best bet is to look at what the scientific consensus is, rather than trying to be a scientist yourself.
- rpedroso 12y ago
  This is reasonable -- I admit, I accept as true many results that I don't fully understand precisely because I don't have time to learn everything about every field. But I'm not sure that this kind of leniency with respect to evidence for beliefs is incompatible with the idea that we should focus on the results over the individuals.
threeseed 12y ago
> Perhaps science would be better served by a decreased emphasis on the individuals carrying out scientific research and increased emphasis on the results themselves. No thanks. One of the worst aspects of modern day science right now is that the media et al seems to think it is okay to allow anyone to present counter arguments regardless of their scientific background. This causes problems for the laymen who has no ability to even comprehend let alone compare results from different individuals. And it is laymen who ultimately determines what science gets funded and what happens to the results of the science e.g. political action.
- protonfish 12y ago
  The results of one study could mean anything and I agree it should not be emphasized to the public. However, the term "scientific consensus" makes truth sound like a popularity contest and worse - a popularity contest by people who claim they are better than you. This appeals to the authoritarian nature of people, not their critical nature. It is basically telling the public they aren't allowed to think. It's not only a jerk thing to do, it discourages scientific literacy outside of scientific professionals. Another problem with the "scientific consensus" is due to its political influence and nebulous definition it is rife for abuse. If there is no rigorous methodology to determine it in an accurate and replicable manner, then it can be whatever someone says it is. I agree that we need some sort of way of determining scientific validity by taking into account many tests, theory and perpectives, but "Scientific consensus" (whatever that is) is not it.
- rpedroso 12y ago
  I agree that armchair "expert opinion" is a significant problem at this time (see Harry Collins, "Are we all scientific experts now?"). However, I'm not sure I see how a social emphasis on evidence over authority would invite more of this. Collins, for instance, traces this problem to misplaced feelings of expertise. He believes we should "elevate science to a special position in our society." I mean to suggest that if we focus less on authority ("x says this, x is an expert, x is true") and more on science ("experiment y is evidence that z"), then this kind of layperson interjection would be excluded from social discourse.
justsee 12y ago
Your use of an imagined ignorant politician wielding the phrase 'scientific consensus' in the affirmative as a disagreeable act seems odd to me. It is generally the 'skeptic' ignorantly asserting 'there is no consensus' which brings focus to the concept in that debate: "The skeptic attitude to consensus usually starts with “there is no consensus”. That’s wrong, and they usually retreat from it to “but consensus science is meaningless”, and/or “consensus has nothing to do with science”. The latter is largely true but irrelevant. The existence of the consensus doesn’t do a lot to determine what science is done; it doesn’t prevent contrary lines being explored. But the consensus view does come into the tricky interface between science and policy, and science and the media." [1] > they assert that results about medical science are distorted by financial pressures, etc. I'm not sure what you mean here? Much science conducted is so distorted by financial pressure that it isn't scientific. Consider how an entire area of research in the pharmaceutical industry should probably just be binned [2]. Considering this, it is more essential than ever in considering the individuals carrying out the research. As long as we have weak and corrupted regulatory systems there will be a continued distrust of any industry-sponsored research, and in many areas that's the research that dominates. Until there's a global change in how research is funded and conducted there seems little hope of trusting that the output is very scientific. [1] http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/just-what-is-this-consensus-anyway/ http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/just-w... [2] http://www.badscience.net/books/bad-pharma/ http://www.badscience.net/books/bad-pharma/

blfr 12y ago

The hallmark of science is predictive power. Experiments, replication, peer review are all nice but optional. When you have a general enough theory, you don't need to re-do the exact same experiment. You may not need to experiment at all and get by on mere observation. (Just call it a "natural experiment" when pressed.)

rpedroso 12y ago
I don't think this is correct. Willingness to accept theories based on our limited understanding of the underlying facts and our observations has led to widespread, incorrect belief before. Descartes and Galileo accepted atomism because, based on their limited understanding of chemistry, it made sense. It wasn't until experiments like the cathode ray tube experiment and the gold foil experiment revealed more elementary particles and forced people to revise their beliefs. Philosophers of science like Karl Popper like to focus on falsifiability over induction precisely because we tend to become complacent in beliefs that don't tell the whole story and otherwise obscure more interesting, less intuitive underlying phenomena. I feel like, if we had it your way, we might still be atomists.
- Dylan16807 12y ago
  No, because they predicted measurements that were wrong.

stdbrouw 12y ago

> But one tenant of scientific thought is that truth and factuality are not measures of an individual's or society's belief, but rather, they are discovered by experiments whose results can be replicated. Discovery and replication can be complex affairs though: was the experiment competently executed, was it interpreted the right way, did any attempt at replication properly replicate the conditions of the original, is there theory to go along with the experiment and how convincing and coherent is that theory, and so on and so on. And if there are points of disagreement, good luck trying to figure out who is right without any domain knowledge. So, yes, ultimately, as a non-scientist in a lot of cases your best bet is to look at what the scientific consensus is, rather than trying to be a scientist yourself.

rpedroso 12y ago
This is reasonable -- I admit, I accept as true many results that I don't fully understand precisely because I don't have time to learn everything about every field. But I'm not sure that this kind of leniency with respect to evidence for beliefs is incompatible with the idea that we should focus on the results over the individuals.

threeseed 12y ago

> Perhaps science would be better served by a decreased emphasis on the individuals carrying out scientific research and increased emphasis on the results themselves. No thanks. One of the worst aspects of modern day science right now is that the media et al seems to think it is okay to allow anyone to present counter arguments regardless of their scientific background. This causes problems for the laymen who has no ability to even comprehend let alone compare results from different individuals. And it is laymen who ultimately determines what science gets funded and what happens to the results of the science e.g. political action.

protonfish 12y ago
The results of one study could mean anything and I agree it should not be emphasized to the public. However, the term "scientific consensus" makes truth sound like a popularity contest and worse - a popularity contest by people who claim they are better than you. This appeals to the authoritarian nature of people, not their critical nature. It is basically telling the public they aren't allowed to think. It's not only a jerk thing to do, it discourages scientific literacy outside of scientific professionals. Another problem with the "scientific consensus" is due to its political influence and nebulous definition it is rife for abuse. If there is no rigorous methodology to determine it in an accurate and replicable manner, then it can be whatever someone says it is. I agree that we need some sort of way of determining scientific validity by taking into account many tests, theory and perpectives, but "Scientific consensus" (whatever that is) is not it.
rpedroso 12y ago
I agree that armchair "expert opinion" is a significant problem at this time (see Harry Collins, "Are we all scientific experts now?"). However, I'm not sure I see how a social emphasis on evidence over authority would invite more of this. Collins, for instance, traces this problem to misplaced feelings of expertise. He believes we should "elevate science to a special position in our society." I mean to suggest that if we focus less on authority ("x says this, x is an expert, x is true") and more on science ("experiment y is evidence that z"), then this kind of layperson interjection would be excluded from social discourse.

justsee 12y ago

Your use of an imagined ignorant politician wielding the phrase 'scientific consensus' in the affirmative as a disagreeable act seems odd to me. It is generally the 'skeptic' ignorantly asserting 'there is no consensus' which brings focus to the concept in that debate: "The skeptic attitude to consensus usually starts with “there is no consensus”. That’s wrong, and they usually retreat from it to “but consensus science is meaningless”, and/or “consensus has nothing to do with science”. The latter is largely true but irrelevant. The existence of the consensus doesn’t do a lot to determine what science is done; it doesn’t prevent contrary lines being explored. But the consensus view does come into the tricky interface between science and policy, and science and the media." [1] > they assert that results about medical science are distorted by financial pressures, etc. I'm not sure what you mean here? Much science conducted is so distorted by financial pressure that it isn't scientific. Consider how an entire area of research in the pharmaceutical industry should probably just be binned [2]. Considering this, it is more essential than ever in considering the individuals carrying out the research. As long as we have weak and corrupted regulatory systems there will be a continued distrust of any industry-sponsored research, and in many areas that's the research that dominates. Until there's a global change in how research is funded and conducted there seems little hope of trusting that the output is very scientific. [1] http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/just-what-is-this-consensus-anyway/ http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/just-w... [2] http://www.badscience.net/books/bad-pharma/ http://www.badscience.net/books/bad-pharma/