SCIENTIFIC CONSENSUS AND YOU

Littlefish on Tue Mar 15, 2011 6:29 am

How you view the set of opinions labeled 'scientific consensus' can have a huge impact on your life. It can affect what you think, what you believe, and what you do. It can determine whether or not you are ready for what is coming, because you will only prepare for what you can reasonably expect to happen.

What is scientific consensus?

From the Wikipedia entry on scientific consensus comes this introduction to the topic of scientific consensus:

Scientific consensus is the collective judgment, position, and opinion of the community of scientists in a particular field of study. Consensus implies general agreement, though not necessarily unanimity. Scientific consensus is not by itself a scientific argument, and it is not part of the scientific method. Nevertheless, consensus may be based on both scientific arguments and the scientific method.

Further in the article is a sub-topic entitled, Scientific Consensus and the Scientific Minority, where you will find a list of ideas once scoffed at by consensus but today held as fact after the scientific method was given time to prove the minority opinion correct. More examples are given in the Reason.com article listed at the bottom of this post.

From [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] comes a definition of scientific consensus with the following conclusion:

Therefore, Scientific Consensus is NOT a synonym of "Certain Truth".

But when the scientific expertise to judge a scientific position is lacking, the best choice is to rely on the Consensus.

Most articles available online refuting the strength and certainty of scientific consensus focus on the global warming issue, such as When to Doubt a Scientific ‘Consensus’ from The American, which opens:

Anyone who has studied the history of science knows that scientists are not immune to the non-rational dynamics of the herd.

That article also introduces a statistic:

four in ten Americans now saying that they place little or no trust in what scientists have to say about the environment

Well, that is a good start.

Please take time to become familiar with just what 'scientific consensus' is. You will learn that it is a woefully insufficient means of determining for a generation what has happened in the past, what is happening today, and what will happen in the future (even the near future). You will see that it is a method of control used by the zeitgeist to keep the thoughts, beliefs, and actions of westerners going in the preferred direction. It is a way of keeping the vast majority of us thinking their way, believing their way, and behaving their way even when they, themselves, may well know that our understanding of our surroundings and beyond is vastly limited.

To be prepared for what is coming -- spiritually, mentally, physically, and materially ready -- we must reject the zeitgeist altogether, and that includes much of the science it promotes, a large portion of which is based on scientific consensus. Knowing just what scientific consensus is -- how it is developed, what it is based on, and how often it has been proven incorrect -- is necessary to do so.

Further reading:

Scientific Consensus Redux: Looking back, it turns out that a lot of scientific consensuses were wrong. -- Reason.com

Why 'Scientific Consensus' Fails to Persuade -- Science Daily