Good article about scientific consensus

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Testing past consensi

Update: apologies for formatting problems in a previous version of this blog post.

Last week a study claimed that 97-98 percent of the most published climate scientists agree with the scientific consensus that man-made climate change is happening.

Well, duh. Of course they would: it’s their livelihood. Anyway, so do I. So do most `sceptics’: they just argue about how much and through what means. You can believe in man-made carbon dioxide causing man-made climate change but not in net positive feedbacks so you think the change will be mild, slow, hard to discern among natural changes and far less likely to cause harm than carbon-rationing policies: that's still within the range of possibilities of the IPCC consensus.

Besides, what happened to previous declarations of certain scientific consensus? In Reason magazine Ron Bailey has gone back and looked up the phrase in the mainstream media before 1985. He finds that it was used about a whole bunch of assertions that later proved false, exaggerated or misleading

First saccharin:

One of the first instances of the uses of the phrase appears in the July 1, 1979 issue of TheWashington Post on the safety of the artificial sweetener saccharin. “The real issue raised by saccharin is not whether it causes cancer (there is now a broad scientific consensus that it does)”

Yet

Thirty years later, the National Cancer Institute reports that “there is no clear evidence that saccharin causes cancer in humans.

Second dietary cancer:

Similarly, the Post reported later that same year (October 6, 1979) a “profound shift” in the prevailing scientific consensus about the causes of cancer. According to the Post, researchers in the 1960s believed that most cancers were caused by viruses, but now diet was considered the far more important factor. One of the more important findings was that increased dietary fiber appeared to reduce significantly the incidence of colon cancer.

Yet

Twenty years later, a major prospective study of nearly 90,000 women reported, “No significant association between fiber intake and the risk of colorectal adenoma was found.” In 2005, another big study confirmed that “high dietary fiber intake was not associated with a reduced risk of colorectal cancer.”

Third, fusion:

The December 17, 1979 issue of Newsweek reported that the Department of Energy was boosting research spending on fusion energy reactors based on a scientific consensus that the break-even point—that a fusion reactor would produce more energy than it consumes—could be passed within five years.

Yet

That hasn’t happened yet and the latest effort to spark a fusion energy revolution, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, will not be ready for full-scale testing until 2026.

Fourth, acid rain:

The March 10, 1985 New York Times cited environmental lawyer Richard Ottinger, who asserted that there is a “broad scientific consensus'' that acid rain is destroying lakes and forests and ''is a threat to our health.''

Yet

The [official] assessment concluded that acid rain was not damaging forests, did not hurt crops, and caused no measurable health problems. The report also concluded that acid rain helped acidify only a fraction of Northeastern lakes and that the number of acid lakes had not increased since 1980.

Had he been able to go back further in time, Bailey would have found just as firm a scientific consensus behind eugenics.

Of course, some assessments are right. And of course, the environmentalists most loudly proclaiming that we must obey the scientific consensus on climate change take no such notice of the consensus that genetically modified crops are safe.

Not "some." Most. And you can't make a rational challenge to the scientific consensus if you don't actually know the science, which is why climate change deniers, YECs, etc are disregarded.

... the environmentalists most loudly proclaiming that we must obey the scientific consensus on climate change take no such notice of the consensus that genetically modified crops are safe.

That is not the point here. The point here is this:


The true value or accuracy of consensus is that matter of this question.

Not "some." Most. And you can't make a rational challenge to the scientific consensus if you don't actually know the science, which is why climate change deniers, YECs, etc are disregarded.

... he seems to be saying ... even "scientific consensus" should be taken with a grain of salt for various reasons ...

Not "some." Most. And you can't make a rational challenge to the scientific consensus if you don't actually know the science, which is why climate change deniers, YECs, etc are disregarded.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson#Global_warming

Dyson who is a world class physicist has some rather substantial criticisms of the current climate models and methodology. He is no Crackpot Denier. He is a physicist who in his prime was in the same class as Richard Feynman.

ruveyn

In that article, Dyson is quoted as admitting he doesn't know the science behind climate change. Neither you nor I know anything of consequence about the issue either. All I know is that the people who are well-informed and do know the science are convinced that this is a serious problem we need to be addressing.

All I know is that the people who are well-informed and do know the science are convinced that this is a serious problem we need to be addressing.

There is a good reason he does not know the science behind Climate Change. Right now there is no good theory to account for Climate Change. There are many different drivers for climate change, some based on human activity, some not. The question is how to way the various drivers properly. This has not yet happened.

When we have a climate change theory as good as quantum electrodynamics or the Standard Model we can use it to help sort out policy.

ruveyn

When the mechanisms to manipulate our climate are fully known, would it then be more possible to terraform other worlds?