Prove consensus exists among scientists

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ruveyn you are so wrong.

I will concede - people who know and care nothing about science talk about scientific consensus ONLY when

A: A crackpot or charlatan wants to talk the non-science oriented into swallowing his crackpottitude or send him money

[you are free, even if I could stop you, to point to certain self-designated theists who dojusdt that - it happens and I dislike it as much as you because it dumps dung in the bathwater]

or

B.The media or some arm of academia or the government [which is much the same thing] wants to claim today's equivalent of papal or scriptural authority for some policy.

B, of course, is technically a subset of A.

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But there are those involved in the sciences [and I do NOT mean only Linguistics or only me] who may be heard bewailing the fact that, though there may not be sensu stricto consensus among the scientist of a given field, there is a majority of the scientific community [whether actively participating or held hostage] that has erected an Iron Curtain and established a United Front blocking acces to classroom, labs and journals any who do not salute the Leader's portrait.

You have spoken as if you are one with a concern for science; how can you not have heard thios from those who are nothing to do with the phoney war of Creationism?

Maybe there is a consensus within a field and it simply makes you angry because that's not your preferred answer. Does disagreement with you have to be the result of a conspiracy?

Did I say there was a conspiracy? There may be in some fields, but there does not have to be.

I will be brief.

We will use Linguistics because that is the one I KNOW.

About a decade before I got into Linguistics, there were in this country alone perhaps a handful of schools of thought, each with a great deal of internal variation, and a lot of individual paths. There was a lot of debate, a lot of people pursuing what seemed interesting to them but nobody else, a lot of diffderent backgrounds.

By about a decade after i got into Linguistics, nearly every department of linguistics in this country had a TG majority, nearly every journal published almost exclusively TG papers, the range of topics was narrowed, and people who actually knew something about languages and how they worked were being retired, excluded from journals, and finding it harder to get a degree and find a job.

This was not a conspiracy. It was conquest, a power grab run from MIT on a basis of infiltration and evangelization.

I do not mind being a minority. I have always been and always will be odd man out in every area of life. I do not mind being pushed out of my career. I landed in my feet and the U is such a dump these days I am better off.

I DO very much mind that there is only one party active, that those who are interested in languages are out of it, that when I meet someone I would kill to see entering a linguistic career I have to tell him forget it, they will eat you.

That makes sense. I think "hot" topics are not unusual in academia. I remember watching a show about how popular string theory became after a certain point. I would see it as a more organic process than a top down conspiracy. Students and researchers voting with their feet in a world where dollars and journal space are limited.

Please see the post I did on the next page topic


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Last edited by sartresue on 14 May 2011, 8:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Examples? From what I can tell, politics tries to interfere in science, not the other way around.

anthropogenic global warming is the case in point. The science behind it is sh*tty but it is Politically Correct.

ruveyn

I don't know how the process worked with the rise of string theory. After the push from the loyalists got it past the tipping point, money and pubs kept it going - and then nothing else was being taught.

I know one guy - good man, has the right instincts to be a great comparativist. But by the time he came through nobody at any major U was teaching comp ling. So he has had to reinvent the wheel - which id not how we would like science to work.

What he does is not bad - but could be lots better.

sartresue -

your last post the quotes too big and boundaries too unclear for me to know whether or what to say.

Feel free to restate or not.

The issue is that relativity plus the standard quantum model explain all observations to date. There aren't any cracks. There is no need for new theories.

However, there is a need for new PhDs in physics, because you have to replace your retiring professors from somewhere. To get a PhD, you have to make an "original contribution". And to make an "original contribution" to theoretical physics, you basically have to work in fantasy land, because given the current state of observational data, existing theories are complete.

String theory managed to get some respectability because some people thought it could be used for grand unification of gravity and the standard model. It hasn't lived up to its promise. However, the mathematics of string theory can be complex enough that it can generate a lot of PhD theses without being rejected as useless with complete certainty. Once enough people who did string theory for their PhDs became professors, it became a self sustaining community, even without any contact with experimental evidence.

Last edited by psychohist on 14 May 2011, 8:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Also, did anyone consider that the concept of consensus among theists is so absurd that it hardly bears mentioning?

Yes. As pointed out in my post earlier in this thread, there are now about 10 years of data that are not well explained by current theories. However, there's no work being published about what's actually happening, because it's politically incorrect to oppose the "consensus" view.

To me, an even more annoying example is in anthropology. The recent single African origin hypothesis - that a group of humans tracing its ancestry to "mitochondrial Eve" in east Africa spread throughout the world, displacing all other human groups without interbreeding - was always based on inadequate evidence, since it was based on the tiny fraction of the genome that's in the mitochondria. It became the "consensus" view because its proponents managed to paint it as more politically correct. Now it has been flatly disproven with DNA proof of interbreeding with neanderthals, but no one wants to point that out because they'll be ostracized in politically correct faculty clubs.

Philologos' example in linguistics is also apropos.

Contrast these situations with general relativity. No one ever says that you should believe general relativity because it's the "consensus view", even though it is. No, they tell you that you should believe general relativity because it matches the data so well - to within one part in ten to the 27 or so.

Those who defend evolution with "consensus" arguments do science a disservice as well. Neodarwinian evolution is supported by myriads of observations - thousands or millions of fossils, of specimens, of genetic observations. The data support it irrespective of what the consensus view is.

psychohist -

I had heard something like that about the srring thing. Close enough to how it was by us.

Seen it too much -

the ones who actually think AND resist the easy path often get nuudged.

Not all - I squeaked through by luck and determination, but I know some others. They generally do not get prominent.

My brother - for all he won't talk to me - I am proud to say thinks for himself.. No big grant access, of course.

Tell me about it. Theologians are like any other scientists. At least there is little danger of a total takeover - And if the Children of the Dawn impose a loyalty oath, the dissidents split.

Used to be like that with tribes / nations - if KuPtore takes too much foofoo from KuSek, KuSek and his family move to the next hill and start their own tribe.

as for consensus outside the sciences - on anything -

do you listen to Oprah or Limbaugh, back the Packers ir the Celtics.?

They predicted rising temps. That is happening decade over decade. 2010 being the hottest on record (or tied with 2005) according NASA, NOAA and WMO. 2010 second hottest next to 1998 according the Hadley CRU stuff. Of the top 10 hottest years on record (since 1850) NASA and Hadley agree, nine were in the past ten years. There is no question its warming. Skeptics concede that and argue causes. Denialists argue with the satellites and thermometers.

What you attempted to do earlier to show the La Nina effect (cooling ocean) of 2008 and then stop. It's classic denialism. It's 2011 now.

Last edited by simon_says on 14 May 2011, 10:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

From Bethie's Post:

A bold statement I did not make topic

I am not sure what you are speaking about. There is no consensus in science, are there are many ways of looking at data, though of course there is a scientific method. A theory of evolution is theoretical, and it does work, for now. I am hoping that new knowledge can be discovered that will add to the theory, and help us to learn more about ourselves and our world. There is nothing theoretical in religion--it is a certainty which I find appallingly erroneous. There is always new knowledge being discovered, and even theories change, which is not to say these theories are not useful as starting points.

Our knowledge of evolution has grown much since Darwin, and so has more critical understanding of our place in the ever expanding universe

You stated that you despair of the state of education in schools. I do agree with you in that science education is often given short shrift in many schools. It is expensive to keep it up to date and to have competent teaching. In the school where my daughter studies only two credits are needed in order to fullfil secondary school graduation requirements. Not getting a good grounding in the hard sciences at the secondary level limits choices for young people who hope to make their world a more desireable place to live and work.[/quote]

Out of the confusion topic

The statement in bold in the quote was what I was replying about to Bethie. I hope this helps.