Scientific Consensus Clarified

"There are so many misconceptions about consensus in science: What is a consensus? Does science work via consensus? 

"I ask these questions and more in this interview with John Cook, the main author of the 97% consensus on climate change study!"

Click on the link below for the details:

Scientific Consensus with Dr John Cook

A Science-Based Look At Diversity

One can't avoid the mantra of diversity being good if exposed in any significant way to progressive media. Let's take an objective look at this.

Cultural Diversity: We all come into existence within a particular culture that may or may not be harmful to others. As long as the individuals within the culture are not responsible for harm, there should not be a rejection of them. ACCEPTING INDIVIDUAL CULTURAL DIVERSITY IS VALID

Racial Diversity: This should not be an issue at all, as race is not a scientific reality but a human construct. ACCEPTING THIS PERCEIVED DIVERSITY IS VALID

Religious and Political Diversity: One first has to ponder why there is diversity in such. Most folks are indoctrinated into a particular religion and political point of view as a child. Since most are never educated about critical thinking/skepticism, most folks just accept what they are taught by their family and culture. 

The reason why there is so much religious and political diversity is that most people do not use science-based thinking to understand reality. They rely on feelings, intuition, testimony, and media that may or may not be true. Compare this to science. Initially, there IS diversity. However, the various points of view (hypotheses) are analyzed through observation and/or experimentation. From this process, opinions shown not to be supported by sufficient evidence are discarded and a provisional consensus is usually formed. The stronger the evidence, the stronger the consensus. THE FINDINGS OF SCIENTIFIC METHODS ARE NOT DIVERSE. 

THE MORE DIVERSE OPINIONS ARE ON A TOPIC, THE GREATER CHANCES OF ERROR. Religious and conservative political views are not valid.

Scientific Consensus

Religious apologists frequently will point to religious scientists, either in the past or present, and use the fallacy of numbers to support the notion that science and religion are compatible. However, they ignore the fact that members of the ELITE scientific organizations in the USA (National Academy of Sciences) and the UK (the Royal Society) overwhelmingly reject the claims for the supernatural and a God because of the lack of evidence. The fact that some scientists personally accept these unsupported claims is much different than science as a discipline accepting them: it doesn't (full-stop).

These religious people misunderstand the concept of Scientific Consensus, which is nicely and concisely presented in this link, some of which is below:

"I like to imagine the scientific method as resembling the solar system. The planets, traveling in perfect orbits, represent the pillars of the scientific method: Observations, hypotheses, predictions/experiments, and continuous refinements.

"What holds all of this together -- the inward tug of gravity in this analogy -- is consensus. We often call it "theory," but that's just a different word for consensus. Every scientific field has a unifying theory: for biology, it is evolution; for chemistry, atomic theory; and for physics, quantum mechanics and general relativity. We could replace the word "theory" with "consensus," and the meaning would essentially be the same."

Blind Spots In Apologetics

Most Christian apologists with whom I have come in contact talk about how most people on the planet believe in a God so it must be true. Ironically, their major apologetic is invalid philosophy but they do not reflect on the fact that this is an appeal to popularity or the fallacious argumentum ad populum. They reject the more reasonable counter-apologetic that God-belief and all superstition is an evolutionary side-effect/adaptation, purely natural and one of the common flaws in our thinking.

Ironically, they don't use this fallacy when confronting scientific consensus on a topic that falsifies their beliefs.

The video below does a good job in presenting the truth that we, as individuals, don't know as much as we think, and most of our knowledge comes to us through the human community of experts:

Why do we believe things that aren't true?

Climate Change And Consensus

There is a wide gap between what scientists really know and what the public thinks that scientists know about, not only climate change but most other issues.

97% of climate scientists agree - - -

If you don't believe what they are saying, look for yourself

Photo by Thomas Hafeneth on Unsplash

Findings Of Science Trump Personal Experience

"One of the biggest challenges in science writing when discussing unproven or implausible therapies and products is that people tend to trust their own personal perceptions more than any other source of information. We tend to go by what we've experienced ourselves, rather than by what other people say they've experienced. Consequently, people are rarely moved by the results of testing and experimentation if the results contradict their own experience."

Don't Try It Before You Knock It

Exploiting Scientific Complexity And Poor Communication For Ideological Purposes

"A recent article in the Guardian discusses how scientists and experts should communicate risk and certainty to the public. The author, Jack Stilgoe, makes some good points, but unfortunately frames it as part of a defense of Jill Stein."

Communicating Risk and Certainty

Using Climate Change As A Scientific Model To Educate Science Deniers

"Cox does an excellent job emphasizing the model building nature of science. I think “scientific model” is the best term to use when discussing the nature of science (and here are three scientific words everyone should stop using).

What Climate Change Skeptics Aren’t Getting About Science

An Analogy Explaining Scientific Consensus

 "The scientific method produces consensus. But, if enough contradictory evidence arises, the consensus falls apart. Eventually, it crumbles completely and is replaced by a new consensus."

The Importance Of Communicating The Consensus In Science

Political conservatives persist in denying the reality of climate change, as well as many other findings of science.  This article looks at the evidence that communicating the consensus on climate change is the best way of combating the ignorance and ideology of conservatives.  In fact, there is no reason to think that such active communication of consensus is not effective in other areas of science as well.

Communication of consensus can cancel out the "fake expert" strategy of conservatives.

Scientific Experts Are Such For A Reason

"– think of the one area of knowledge in which you have the greatest expertise. This does not have to be your job, it can be just a hobby. Now, how accurate are news reports that deal with your area of extensive knowledge? How much does the average person know? Does anyone other than a fellow enthusiast or expert ever get it quite right?"

The Consensus In Medicine Is Important

Just like one should accept the consensus of scientists working in the discussed field, one should also accept the consensus findings of the experts in medicine.

https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/worshiping-at-the-altar-of-the-cult-of-the-brave-maverick-doctor/

Scientific Consensus Is Almost Never Wrong?

A humbling look at scientific consensus. Yes, it is not smooth or easy, however, what is the alternative to finding the truth about reality?

http://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2015/11/25/scientific_consensus_is_almost_never_wrong_109464.html

Scientific Consensus And Corporate Influence

"The consensus is often dismissed as an argument from authority, but this is not a valid application of that fallacy. The power of science is that conclusions are crowd-sourced among experts, and are self-correcting with new evidence. Individual quirky opinions average out, and ideas have to go through the meat-grinder of peer-review and the scientific community."

http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/scientific-consensus-and-corporate-influence/

More On Scientific Consensus Denial

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/crossexamined/2015/10/you-dont-like-the-scientific-consensus-ignore-it-away/

Reject Scientific Consensus? More On Denialism

"On what grounds could someone reject the consensus of the people who actually understand the evidence, the people who actually have the doctorate degrees and who actually do the work on a daily basis?"

More exposure to the real problem of denialism.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/crossexamined/2015/10/reject-the-scientific-consensus-how-do-you-justify-that-bible/

What Does "Scientific Consensus" Mean?

"In other words, unlike in most cases, unless you are a scientist working in the particular field in question, you are probably not even capable of discerning between a conclusion that’s scientifically valid and viable and one that isn’t. Even if you’re a scientist in a somewhat related field! Why? This is mostly due to the fact that a non-expert cannot tell the difference between a robust scientific idea and a caricature of that idea."

https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/what-does-scientific-consensus-mean-618f93c4513b

The Precautionary Principle

 "The clarity of a scientific conclusion exists along a spectrum from genuinely controversial to rock solid, but scientific evidence is always complex, subject to multiple interpretations, and incomplete. It doesn’t take much creativity to portray any scientific conclusion (even those at the rock solid end of the spectrum) as murky. Creationists are evidence of that."

http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/fox-news-the-nfl-and-concussion-denial/

In The Long Term The Scientific Process Works.

"Indeed, I’ve argued that one red flag identifying a crank or a quack is a hostility towards the very concept of a scientific consensus."

"It’s also important to remember that there are scientific consensuses and then there are scientific consensuses. What I mean is that some consensuses are stronger than others, ---"

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/on-the-right-to-challenge-a-medical-or-scientific-consensus/

Scientific Consensus

If you are not an expert in the scientific field under discussion, you must accept the consensus of those experts.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/crossexamined/2012/12/reject-the-scientific-consensus-how-do-you-justify-that/