An appeal to authority fallacy that has been used on many topics is that Scientific Consensus is all that is needed to prove a thing or disprove a thing. This is NOT how science works. People saying this are not actually practicing science at all. If they have a degree but are ignoring the scientific method that doesn't make them a scientist.
When you are using the scientific method then at that time you would be a scientist. If you are not using the scientific method then you are not a scientist. Why is this important?
There is no such thing as consensus in the scientific method. This also indicates that consensus is NOT an aspect of science. It is irrelevant. If 99.999% believe a false thing guess what? It's still false. If 0.001% believe the true thing guess what? It is still true. Consensus is totally irrelevant in science. Whenever you hear that set of words it is an emotional attack on you. It is an Appeal to Authority AND an Appeal to Popularity. In a sense it is more about using something like peer pressure to get you to go along with a narrative and try to FIT IN. That doesn't make it true, and it certainly is not scientific.
For those of you that may want a refresher. Here is a quick and dirty steps of the scientific method as written by me for this post. I didn't go google it to try to find the most perfectly worded variant. You are more than welcome to do that yourself.
- Make observations - Look, Listen, Touch, Taste, Smell, etc. Use your senses. Take notes mentally or on a device or tool.
- Ask questions
- Form a hypothesis about your observations to try to explain them. This can also be referred to as speculating, or guessing based upon observation.
- Create a test to try to prove or disprove your hypothesis. Such tests should be repeatable by other people, and you should have a control if possible that is not part of the test to compare results to.
- Examine the results of the test. If the hypothesis fails, go back to the hypothesis stage and come up with a new one based upon the new information. Failure is not a bad thing in science. It leads us to more refined and different ideas.
- Submit your data and testing methodology to the scientific community and wait for verification and repeatable results. This can result in failure as well and end up going back to the hypothesis stage.
- If you make it this far then you now have a THEORY. This doesn't mean it is without question. Science always questions and challenges everything. We've had long standing theories that eventually were replaced by better ones after long periods of the theory being dominant.
I watched a video from Anthony Brian Logan on youtube showing an interview between CNN and the FOUNDER of the Weather Channel concerning Climate Change. The video is actually quite entertaining. There was no science IN the video, but what the founder said about Consensus was 100% accurate. It is usually consensus that is being used to slam issues through the public mind. They are treating us like FOOLS by expecting us to treat science as though consensus matters.
Click here to go to his webpage and watch it! 
As far as this NO CONSENSUS B.S. it has been used many times in history for things we now believe and that are foundations of our scientific world these days.
There is a great series about Albert Einstein called GENIUS that shows how many times he basically encountered this wall of people trying to protect consensus rather than actually caring about the truth.
If someone uses CONSENSUS in combination with so-called scientist I hope you're ears will perk up from this point on and you'll notice that as a big red flag. You should... it is a huge red flag.
NOTE: Nowhere in this post did I say there is no Climate Change. I won't say this because the climate is always changing and has always been historically changing. It typically does so over large amounts of time, but it happens whether man is present or not. So saying there is no Climate Change would be false. I can say with a pretty good degree of certainty that what they are talking about on the political scope of things has big flaws. The things they push as solutions to this ISSUE are clearly political and about money as they are not an actual solution. Carbon Taxes are not a solution. They allow the worst offenders to continue, and they allow some way to penalize and put their demands and mandates on whomever an unelected panel decides should be targeted. This is about power, subjugation, and money.
If they don't run straight to CONSENSUS and instead they make all data, data collection methods, and tests available for replication then perhaps we could actually use science. They are not doing this. In fact, they expect you to just TRUST them. This again is an Appeal to Authority Fallacy.
Now another attack they use here is a False Dichotomy. This is the "You are either with us, or you are against us" mentality. There are usually more than just two choices. You are not immediately a DENIER because you don't agree with some aspects of this "political movement". Yet that is what they choose to try to use. This is a false dichotomy.
click here!This post received a 37% upvote from @randowhale thanks to @kennyskitchen! For more information,
Great post @dwinblood! I get very annoyed at people who buy into the cult of scientism, and especially the big evangelicals of it: Bill Nye, Neil Tyson, etc. Government shills, proving that it doesn't matter if the "authority" comes from a gun & badge, a private army, or simply some letters after your name, people who are trained to bow down will keep bowing down.
ideaI just gifted you a @randowhale vote as part of an I'm calling #payitforward. As you can see from this image, my 2 $BD payment to @randowhale just turned into an increase of around $17 on your expected payout (meaning 8.5 $BD & some number of SteemPower). If you were to spend just 4 of that extra $BD to #payitforward to two other posts, you would still be ahead and could give them the same kind of boost, or maybe even more :-)
announcementThanks for being part of Steemit, and maybe share some whale-vote love with other folks you enjoy reading, friends who join the site, or great posts you see. Check out @randowhale's introduction (linked in the comment above) and my of #payitforward to learn more.
Steem on!
PS: Thanks @randowhale
"Scientific consensus" is a useful term that has been misunderstood and misused by many. It is an important part of the scientific method.
It means that a scientific community is in general agreement through thorough peer review and statistically significant evidence, at a given moment. Particularly, when a hypothesis is deemed a theory, that would be scientific consensus.
By no means does it mean that scientists in the field shouldn't question it or that consensus does not change. That is by definition their job. Just last week, a white dwarf's mass was measured hoping to find irregularities in the predicted age of the universe. Einstein's General Theory of Relativity continues to be annoyingly correct. This is scientific consensus. Go ahead and test your hypothesis that the consensus is wrong, but don't go around saying Einstein was wrong without statistically significant evidence to back it up.
Sure, there are some bad media and perhaps some bad scientists that appeal to the "you're with us or against us" mentality, but that is not what scientific consensus is at all.
So while you have a good understanding of the scientific method, I think you're misusing the term scientific consensus as well in the opposite extreme.
Peer review these days can be a bad thing. Scientists get their money usually from grants and governments. This is also why we see less and less publication about FAILURES in science even though those failures contain very important information to science as well.
Peer review is meaningless if you are pulling from peers all caught up in this system. It should be OPEN and testing/experiment methodology, data, and how the data was collected all available for ANYONE to attempt if they have the means.
There are some things that require massive equipment so likely only will occur with the aid of a lab. Thus, the people that could review such a thing would be small in number.
Peer review these days is fraught with a lot of conflict of interest.
I do not believe consensus has any value. It can either be proven, or disproven. If the data is present and someone challenges it then meet the challenges with science. Any challenges should also be presented with science.
Consensus corrupts the concepts of science and it in fact IS NOT part of the scientific method.
Again, you are confusing two different things. Bad science is bad science. It's not a problem with the scientific method. Indeed, scientific consensus is useful for weeding out the political bias etc. you allude to.
You could possibly claim that one nation's science funding is fraught with conflict of interest, but when you put together thousands of scientists in a field, coming from entirely different walks of lives and philosophies, in over 200 countries, it becomes painfully obvious by studying the data where there is a bias and where there is not. If, however, you think the entire world is participating in a global conspiracy, let's leave it at that.
I do have a question for you? Can you get at the actual data, the methodology for the data collection, and the experiments and testing to validate it?
I ask because I know many scientific studies require you join a rather expensive paywall to get to such information. In fact that has been a concern for a number of people since before Climate Change was an issue.
As I understand it a lot of this material is behind a paywall regardless of the nation you live in.
Likewise, as far as conspiracy. Let's say it IS happening. Carbon Taxes? Give me a break. That is a joke, not a solution.
For the record I've been anti-pollution (all kinds, not just carbon) since long before global warming and then climate change were an issue. So I am all for dealing with pollution wherever we may find it.
Yet it should be real solutions, not obvious political ones that don't really do anything but play kick the can.
It seems clear to me that you haven't actually bothered researching and have a completely warped belief of how modern science works. I don't blame you, it's likely shaped by regressive media and cultural forces. This whole thing about the elite controlling scientists is complete paranoia conspiracy and demonstrably false. Sure, there are some patches here or there fraught with bias, but once again, that's why scientific consensus is important - to get at the heart of the evidence, weed out the biases individual scientists may hold.
Please do some research, you'll be pleasantly surprised. I'll leave it at that, all the best :) Good discussion.
Are you aware that a lot of peer reviewed journals have recently been analyzed and found to have published a lot of false and unproven things? Sure there are good things. Yet there is also an increasing problem with false information is not readily available, only positive results, when the negative results are important information as well. You also did not answer about the paywall for many of the scientific studies.
Instead you decided to kind of shift things. Use your own appeal to authority and point out what you see as my flaws. Like you said I don't blame you as most (even me) use such tactics due to a completely "Warped belief" and failure to remember to use critical thinking.
You also make assumptions. I've actually done the research. My conclusions being different from yours does not indicate I have not. Focusing on that turns it more into an ad hominem.
My conclusions differ from yours. You see I also make observations, ask questions, form hypothesis, and attempt to put them to the test.
Someone asking me a question does not typically result in me focusing on their ignorance rather than answering.
This is a false dichotomy really. It's not either believing in a proper peer-reviewed scientific consensus, or a conspiracy theory.
Scientific claims are usually cross-examined by other scientists, however political interests play a huge role when it comes to the aftermath.
The science part ends with the verification of an experiment. The applications or the steps to confront an issue is an entirely different subject.
The problem is, unfortunately, that many bright scientists have no clue about politics and global dynamics. Take for example Einstein and Feynman, who contributed in creating the atomic bomb. Would they still do it had they been more informed about who this served mostly and who would pay in the end?
Stating that there are political agendas that serve interests is not a conspiracy theory. People in power usually take whatever is available to them and use it to make the most of it. This does not make it a lie, but it does make it partially insincere. These interests are often conflicted with other powerful people or companies, and this is what creates politics.
I therefore agree with dwinblood that if something is presented as a choice of either black or white, there is something wrong with it. Subjects like climate change are so much more complicated than that. There can be partial causes, there can be unknown causes, there can be good solutions that cause worse problems, etc. All factors have to be taken into account and it's just too chaotic to be team 1: the good guys vs team 2: the bad guys. That only happens in politics, and football.
It is also true that peer-review today is very problematic. Several scientists create support circles with other colleagues and they support each other regardless of content quality, knowing this support will come back to them. It's like having a voting circle here on steemit. And since people today rely so heavily on academia, and the only way to make a name among all these other fellow scientists is publish, publish, and publish, to get a grant and publish more, the is a new trend that has been established: publish positive results only, ignore any failure. It is true that studies that ended without the expected outcome are not published at all, although these are as equally useful proving that something doesn't work. It is also true that the continuous publications lower quality, in the sense that a research that could have taken 10 years to fully complete will be compartmentalized and presented in 2 year-periods, for example, perhaps presenting false conclusions on the way.
So I take it that "consensus" refers to the stance towards handling a result following a research, not the experimental method itself. Great article by the way!
He is absolutely accurate in his statements, and in fact there have been a lot of people within academia raising alarm bells about these issues for some time, but you know better don't you? You are the one who hasn't done your proper research. "Demonstrably false", what a joke.
Also I never said there was a problem with the scientific method. I said consensus is not part of the scientific method.
And he encountered a lot of this consensus B.S. too when presenting that. They wouldn't even consider it. Many of them wouldn't even look it over. It was a threat to their reality. It took him providing irrefutable evidence and a repeatable test (at least when an eclipse is occurring). Yet there still were a few well known scientists that still refused to believe it.
So we as humans can become arrogant, we can become fixated on protecting our world view. These are human failings that have nothing to do with science.
Yet we are human, so even "scientists" are plagued by such flaws.
Consensus truly is not part of the scientific method. IT is something the community of scientists have latched onto from time to time. Yet ultimately it has nothing to do with science itself.
Once again, scientific consensus does not mean that you should not question it. Indeed, that's what scientists should do! Consensus is there precisely to be challenged. That is what Einstein did, and he and fellow scientists collected enough evidence to overturn consensus and form a new one.
Your usage of the term consensus is very different from how its stated by (good) scientists and the scientific method.
PS: This article has a pretty simple definition of the term -
Yet today it is used much like "You have to have faith" to question is to be called the "Heretic, or Blasphemer".
This is NOT the fault of scientists. Yet even scientists who are being shielded by this pseudo-religious approach should speak up and say... "Hey, that's not how science works, this person is not speaking for me..." as it kind of is necessary to maintain the integrity of science.
Just because someone speaking in this B.S. way is blocking people that are challenging your hypothesis/theories doesn't mean it is okay to ignore such actions. The integrity of science is important.
The actual scientific method doesn't mention consensus that I saw. :)
But yes science itself is the scientific method (aka the tool we use) and the things we have discovered using that tool. I agree with you there.
Yet I do not agree at all with how consensus is being used to shut people down rather than science.
No one is saying that, at least no one who understands the term correctly. That's what I mean - the term has been misused, and you're misusing it as well. I've clarified this three or four times now, so I'll leave it at that.
The problem is A LOT of people are saying that. Perhaps those that know the term are not speaking up and shutting down the people speaking in their behalf.
That is a term/phrase you can likely find misused in a new article EVERY SINGLE day. That is a guess, but I believe there is a high probability of it being true. Hit or miss a day here or there.
In which case, it's an entirely different problem. Alright, I'll have to quit the discussion at this point, I have said all that I wanted to. Cheers!
You also quoted the first paragraph and I'm not certain you bothered reading the second one.
I do offer you a challenge, as I can't find it anywhere. Show me where CONSENSUS is part of the scientific method.
I've looked. I do have one caveat. If you can make it a source that is at least a decade old. As I bet there are some rewritten more recent ones you can find. I haven't found any yet, but it wouldn't surprise me.
As far as I can find CONSENSUS is not anywhere in the scientific method. I also believe the scientific method is elegant and beautiful, so I have not once been talking about FLAWS in the scientific method itself.
Wow, it's everywhere. I'd recommend The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn as a particularly good read about the scientific method. It's probably the most thorough description I've read.
Government funding and the fact that funding goes to pro-climate change studies have corrupted the system. Is there climate change, clearly, is it caused by humans, don't know, we are also part of the earth. Do butterflies disrupt the winds?
Sure this is another reason I am not a denier. I've seen how asphalt can change climate. Massive temperature differentials as heat absorbed during the day is released. So do humans likely impact the climate? Sure. The question ultimately is to what degree. Then if it is a perceivable problem we should look for actual solutions, not play political games and allow the snake oil salesmen to call the shots.
If people do CHALLENGE the findings with science, then their challenge should be met with science. It should not be met with attempts to shut it down due to the phrase "consensus".
Speaking of votes... when I upvoted this jumped from $11.36 to $25.76- wonder why that happens???
The Weather Channel (I subscribe to emails to keep up with local weather- I don't watch TV) seems to be on the "Climate Change Bandwagon." There's always been climate change... always will be- we call it "weather." There's been weather for millions of years and they've been tracking it for around 150. That tells me that the "experts" are pretty much full of shit. Hmmm- maybe if they actually learned science and the scientific method... never mind, that would screw up their narrative! Bad idea! Oh well, I'm just a crazy old man- what do I know???
"Speaking of votes... when I upvoted this jumped from $11.36 to $25.76- wonder why that happens???"
Must be anthropogenic global warming...
I blame Al Gore!
Clearly Al Gore causes global warming. I think he needs to be heavily taxed. It is for the children.
It's all that hot air!
Is that Gore superimposed on Jeremiah Johnson? xD
I have no idea... It's entirely possible! Someone sent it to me on FB a long time ago.
The people know the scientific method. Yet so much of the scientific information is locked behind a paywall. I do believe that was one of the things Aaron Swartz was trying to set free before he was suicided.
As to the jump. I suspect multiple votes came in and you clicking up vote simply sent a browser message to update the page so it includes your vote plus other votes since the last time the page was loaded/updated by your browser. (my speculation)
So that's how it happens... thanks, I always wondered why that happens... this wasn't the first time.
I thought mentioning Einstein alone would end any conversation abut consensus. In Germany we learn early at school that most great minds published their work to challenge the scientific consensus. I have only seen consensus as an argument in politics, specifically for the EU. Well, that was until I discussed in climate change.
"Someone else said it's true, thus it is true" has never been part of any scientific or philosophical debate I had and it is a very alien concept to me. Maybe there was a time in Germany that we learned from to never blindly trust authorities.
Yeah, well as you see that didn't end up being the case. You and I are of like mind on this.
I honestly never had a well thought out argument against scientific consensus, because I never needed it. Thanks for the article. It is a pretty good explanation of my thoughts on the topic as well.
Hi Deva, it's me @thatgermandude :D. Can you point me to some other good politic writers that I am maybe not aware of? I know you resteem a lot of intersesting people. I am having a pretty huge discussion with @baah about Anarchism (on my private acc) right now.
@richq11 does occasionally. I'll let you know who pops into my mind. I know quite a few people, but I'll need to think about it to get you ones that are original rather than mostly people that aggregate and post videos from youtube.
Thanks, no hurry my friend. I just thought you are a good person to ask about politic bloggers on Steemit ;).
I'll think about it. I don't actually purposefully seek them out. I just do find their blog posts interesting from time to time or inspirational in some way. :) I'll keep looking though.
@zer0hedge looks like they will be, but I suspect a lot of that is just reposts of zerohedge.com posts.
Doing my best to format and repost what I think is most relevant to Steemians, Social media, internet, tech and crypto but yeah maybe I should start another account and post more commentaries.
No reason. I don't think people will have a problem with you mixing in your own commentaries. I for one would not. It is your account. Use it how you like. :)
thanks, did you watch munchhausen yet btw? I would love to know if you agree that he is a libertarian.
No I haven't had a chance. I'll try to get to it soon though. My Air Conditioner is on the fritz and it's been really hot here. I tend to get really lethargic and fall asleep when I am hot. Fortunately, I ordered a new AC unit and it should be here sometime Tuesday.
We have really ugly heather here as well, no sun , but it is hot and the air is moist as a ... We dont have ACs over here in general... sometimes im really envious because of that :P
To be great in life you have to follow the best, that's why I follow you, follow me and we help each other
Very well put, i keep reminding people fact is fact, everything is just opinion.
Yes! I get people attacking me saying that 'you can't cure autism', 'vaccines have no risks', 'homeopathy is nonsense' but they don't respond to my requests to just observe the world - if you're seeing the same pattern over & over & over (perfectly developing children suddenly regressing into autism after vaccination), then we should not deny it's happening, we need to develop & test hypotheses to figure out WHY.
Too much money in not solving those medical things. They lobby to insure we don't. They also pass laws so we can't even sue or hold them accountable, so they just keep rolling their wheel barrows up to the money printing presses and laugh all the way to the bank.
THANK YOU! It is a shame adults need to be told what we learned in grade school. Its almost like people are running around beating themselves in the head with rocks and bricks trying to have a contest of who can be the coolest and kill the most brain cells.
This post is really all the money. Couldn't have said it better myself and it is something that has been bothering me for a looong time. Here is a video from Lee Smolin explaining how science works like a democracy.
Research Karl Popper's falsification to see how he basically trashes this mentality.
I'm in agreement with you!!
Quite a dialog here as well, nice job!! Thank you very much @dwinblood!!
The point of freedom/free-markets/capitalism is to provide a rout to defeat what humans may think is 'Scientific Consensus'...
eg 1: 'Scientific Consensus' says trying to travel 'around the globe' will be the death of you... wrong, some people are going to make a lot of money selling resources from another continent on the globe.
eg 2: 'Scientific Consensus' says using 'xyz' to make energy will not work... wrong, new bargain rates for recharged batteries just available.
BTW: Carbon Taxes are the best way to combat free markets.
Amen - evolution bring labeled a"fact" by scientific consensus is of course the perf example of the deception perpetuated by the scientific comm. So many holes and weaknesses in it anyone who has done enuff objective study on the topic will never draw the conclusion of it being s fact - and that's the actual fact.
I tend to believe in evolution, though I don't think that must preclude some creation event.
I tend to be a deist. This means I believe there is likely some kind of a creator, but that I don't believe any of the revealed religions, prophecies, etc. I just look around me at nature and use reason.
It also does not tell me what that creator was/is/etc. It is also NOT at odds with science.
I don't believe any of the particular creation stories from various religions.
Though I am totally okay if YOU do.
Cool, we can agree to disagree. I just see things like dna and the utter complexity of the various bodily systems which all have to work in harmony with one another and a lack of a creator just doesn't add up to me. The various "conclusive proofs" found all have answers also.
I didn't say there was no creator. We've seen plenty evidence of evolution at work even at our time. We've even put it to work ourselves in domesticating animals. It is real.
Yet that doesn't mean there is no creator. The problem is that this again is another false dichotomy. People get stuck on either creationism or evolution when there are actually more than two choices. They can both exist.
I said I was a deist. That does not mean I don't believe in a creator. It simply means I don't believe in stories written down in books by humans.
What you stated as evidence does not make what is written in books true either.
I don't believe in revelation and prophecy. I simply observe reality, including the things you just described and use reason. The stories written in books may have been pretty convincing to primitive man, but so many of those stories are pretty silly too and some are not plausible.
So I believe there could have been some creation/catalsyst/simulation whatever you want to call it. Yet we see evidence of evolution all the time and we've even harnessed it and made it work for us. Another example is corn. It never existed until mankind went through generations of careful breeding until we had corn with the modern day traits.
So the existence of a creator and evolution are not mutually exclusive.
Micro-evolution does exist, adaptation within a species, however the evidence of millions of species arising from a speck of the simplest is simply not there from all I have studied, nothing close to conclusive on any level, this is what upsets me with the scientific community there simply is no honesty when it comes to this issue (and others as you alluded to in your post).
As far as whether the faith that I believe in christianity I do believe there is very good evidence for it being true, 2 very good books giving thus are The Case For Christ by Lee Strobel and Cold Case Christianity by J. Warner Wallace if u haven't read them and care to pursue further.
click on.
Hi! Have you heard about @krwhale? It is similiar with @randowhale. For your information please
Seems like a scam at the moment. I see people on the comments on that mentioning how they paid but did not get a vote.
Dude. I was a Physics major. I understand Science quite clearly.
You clearly do not.
The scientific method is NOT just reason. It is more like a recipe for how to apply reason to keep our own bias in check. The steps must be followed for it to be science.
As to the existence of scientific consensus. It doesn't exist. Anytime someone says that they are lying. Science has zero to do with consensus. It has only to do with what currently best explains the most observable data/evidence and can predict with the best accuracy future observations. Many times in history it has been the person challenging the consensus of the rest of the world that was correct. That person was sometimes literally burned at the stake. Other times they were vilified and ridiculed and eventually because those masses that were trying to practice science but instead would occasionally get suckered into consensus would realize when trying to challenge what the person said using actual science rather than an appeal to popularity fallacy realized that the person they had been vilifiying and attacking was right. Only when enough people pulled their heads out of their proverbial asses did they suddenly realize consensus was wrong.
Here is simple reason for you...
The truth in SCIENCE doesn't change because a billion people believe it is false.
Something false in SCIENCE doesn't change because a billion people believe it is true.
Consensus = Belief = Appeal to Popularity FALLACY
You are clearly the person that needs to go research some things...
#1 - The Scientific Method.
#2 - Argument from Popularity Fallacy (aka Appeal to Popularity Fallacy) (aka Bandwagon)
You will find books from the 1960s where they decided to write consensus into science. I own such a book. Yet this was a person deciding they had an authority to do this. They didn't. They don't. The scientific method was not and never has included BELIEF as a component. BELIEF is the realm of Consensus.