Is consensus in science an indicator for truth?

Is consensus in science an indicator for truth?

https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1646-is-consensus-in-science-an-indicator-for-truth

You can beat consensus in science with one fact. But you can't convince an idiot about Gods existence with thousand facts

Much of the "settled science" that even geologists and other degree-holding "scientists" accept is really not established fact, it's only most "widely accepted theory", and some actually ignores evidence that might support other and better inferences from available evidence, because that evidence indicates something other than the "consensus opinion" on a subject.
Never mind that almost all the most groundbreaking and world-changing scientific and mathimatical breakthroughs from Galileo to Newton, to Pasteur, to Pascal and Einstein, etc. were made by people who rejected conventional wisdom or went well beyond what "everybody knows". Stephen Lucas

There are until numbers if dissenters and all it takes is one to disprove the orthodoxy.
Most proponents of darwinism never actually examine their theory critically. They just assume it to be true in part because, well, it's the consensus after all! That's called group think.

Jorge R. Barrio corresponding author Consensus Science and the Peer Review 2009 Sep 11
I recently reviewed a lecture on science, politics, and consensus that Michael Crichton—a physician, producer, and writer—gave at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, CA, USA on January 17, 2003. I was struck by the timeliness of its content. I am quite certain that most of us have been—in one way or another—exposed to the concept (and consequences) of “consensus science.” In fact, scientific reviewers of journal articles or grant applications—typically in biomedical research—may use the term (e.g., “....it is the consensus in the field...”) often as a justification for shutting down ideas not associated with their beliefs.

Michael Crichton
“I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet because you're being had.

Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus. Period.”
 
“I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way.”
https://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/Crichton2003.pdf

Jorge R. Barrio Consensus Science and the Peer Review 2009 Apr 28

It begins with Stump's appeal to authority. This is a common evolutionary argument, but the fact that a majority of scientists accept an idea means very little. Certainly expert opinion is an important factor and needs to be considered, but the reasons for that consensus also need to be understood. The history of science is full of examples of new ideas that accurately described and explained natural phenomena, yet were summarily rejected by experts. Scientists are people with a range of nonscientific, as well as scientific influences. Social, career and funding influences are easy to underestimate. There can be tremendous pressures on a scientist that have little to do with the evidence at hand. This certainly is true in evolutionary circles, where the pressure to conform is intense.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2719747/

Why do you not believe in God?

You were told natural mechanisms suffice by Wikipedia
You were told natural mechanisms suffice by Nature magazine
You were told natural mechanisms suffice by the National Center for Biotechnology Information
You were told natural mechanisms suffice by the scientific establishment as a whole

You were told God does not exist by Pearce

You were told God does not exist by Aron Ra

You were told God does not exist by Hawking

You were told God does not exist by Harris
You were told God does not exist by Dennett
You were told God does not exist by Shermer
You were told God does not exist by Krauss

who were told God does not exist by Darwin
who made it all up.

Isn't it time to look into the evidence by yourself, make some effort to actually understand what goes on in the molecular world and the universe, and start to think for yourself?

"I'm a geophysicist and all my earth science books when I was a student, I had to give the wrong answer to get an A. We used to ridicule continental drift. It was something we laughed at. We learned of Marshall Kay's geosynclinal cycle, which is a bunch of crap." Robert Ballard


Scientific truth is NOT decided or proven by majority consensus or any such nonsense, especially when that majority has been influenced/built up by censorship, fallacies or other tactics that remove the objectivity from science/academia. Scientific truth is decided by the overall weight of evidence and rational thinkers must follow that evidence WHEREVER it leads with NO fallacies or double standards of any kind if they really care about objective science and finding facts and truth. Sometimes truth is with the majority, sometimes with the minority. Even 1 scientist can be correct against 99.99999% of scientists and this has routinely happened throughout history. In fact, it's one of the main way science progresses, by 1 or a handful of scientists challenging establishment wisdom and finding it wrong. MOST of the things you believe now about science were learned in precisely this way.

***On one side, OBJECTIVE science/academia is great and one of our most useful tools to find truth. It is secondary in value only to trusting God who has given wise principles that improve life often 1000s of years before scientists figured out why they are important to follow. But, all human institutions and all human beings have bias, including science. And consensus doesn't matter. NEVER has it proven truth at any time. Evidence DOES and objective ways of evaluating evidence (which atheism categorically does not have because it relies on methodological naturalism which destroys all objective evaluation).

A famous example of this is One Hundred Authors against Einstein Published in 1931. This was an attempt to discredit the theory of relativity by the fallacious appeal to the majority and the weight of numbers of scientists against Einstein. Because of the simple errors and straw man nature of the work — not helped by the brevity of the entries — Hans Reichenbach described it as “unintentionally funny”. As Einstein noted: If I were wrong, then one would have been enough!
If you think that what the majority of intellectuals think should be the basis of what we consider truth, then in the past, you would have believed with many intellectuals that/in
--dung and urine are good ingredients in medicines (Egyptians),
--turtles/snakes/elephants, etc. were holding up the earth(many non-Jewish cultures)

--a flat earth, spontaneous generation, a static universe that doesn't move (with only ~2-5000 stars total), geocentrism, that the moon and planets were perfectly circular, that the universe rotates around the earth, that cannonballs fly in a curve and then drop straight down when they lose their energy (Greeks/Aristotle/Arabs, atheists, others)
--that bleeding patients is healthy (Greeks), that bacteria was of no consequence (Greeks up to middle ages)
and much more
If we want to talk about majorities, we can though. At present,
"About two-thirds of scientists believe in God.. Nearly 38 percent of natural scientists -- people in disciplines like physics, chemistry and biology -- said they do not believe in God. Only 31 percent of the social scientists do not believe.
http://www.livescience.com/379-scientists-belief-god...
• Scientists who are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life: http://www.discovery.org/.../viewDB/filesDB-download.php...

• A list of 480 "individuals of high academic training who have publicly expressed serious doubts about Darwinism, other naturalistic theories of life's origin, or have expressed support for intelligent design theory, either in scientific journals, books, web-documents, letters, or other public statements. Our criteria for this page is that each individual must either 1) have a PhD, 2) be a professor at a university or 3) be moderately published in scientific journals, or 4) is a member of a mainstream scientific society." (List of Intellectual Doubters of Darwinism, http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1207)

• 300 medical doctors who have signed "PSSI's Physicials and Surgeons who Dissent from Darwinism": http://www.pssiinternational.com/.../pssi-members-list...

• 3,000 scientists and professors (most of whom hold a Ph.D. in some field of science) who reject secular Darwinism to varying degrees: http://www.rae.org/pdf/darwinskeptics.pdf

• 60% of the Applied Science of Medicine Is Doubting Secular Darwinism http://kgov.com/jonathan-witt-intelligent-design...

• 30,000 U.S. public high school biology teachers do not endorse Darwinism in class - 100,000 college professors in the U.S. alone who, according to Harvard researchers, agree that "intelligent design IS a serious scientific alternative to the Darwinian theory of evolution."- 570,000 medical doctors in the U.S., specialists in applied science, say God brought about or directly created humans. Whereas Darwinsim is dominated by storytelling, the field of medicine is an actual applied scienc within biology that is practiced by highly educated professionals. Thus it is significant that 60% of all U.S. medical doctors reject the strictly secular Darwinist explanation for our existence, with three of five docs agreeing that either God initiated and guided the process that led to human life or that God specially created human beings as we are http://kgov.com/lawrence-krauss-debates-a-creationist

Darwinian Consensus Science

Hey guys, I was having a little visit over at Cornelius Hunter’s blog Darwins God the other day and was confronted, once again, by more Darwinist stupidity.
Dr. Hunter was pointing out how Darwinists don’t even understand their own theory.  Quickly one Darwinian fundamentalist critiqued a point made concerning the fact that a large percent of the population still don’t believe in Darwinian evolution. The opponent, someone calling himself troy, claimed that Hunter was using a “argumentum-ad-populum” and that “is just that – a childish fallacy”.
This is just utterly risible! As I explained in just a few words in response to “troy”, no one on earth relies more on argumentum-ad-populum, i.e. “consensus science” (an oxymoron), than Darwinistas (to borrow one of John A. Davison’s terms)!
Here’s the answer I wrote:

How many times have I been told “overwhelming consensus”, “virtually ALL scientists agree”, “number of peer reviewed…” etc etc. by some evolutionist seeking to justify his religious evolutionism by the number of scientists who agree!
Well I hate to rain of your clownish parade, troy et al., poor Dawinists, but just a few centuries ago the overwhelming consensus was that the earth was flat.
Since then the world has witnessed incredible and inane resistance within the sci community (in Darwinism it should be called the sci-fi community) against dozens upon dozens of -now proven- theories.
Do you need a list? Do you have a few Gigs available to store all the data?
In 1795, Alexander Gordon of Aberdeen suggested that the fevers were infectious processes, and he was able to cure them. The consensus said no.
In 1843, Oliver Wendell Holmes claimed puerperal fever was contagious, and presented compelling evidence. The consensus said no.
In 1849, Semmelweiss demonstrated that sanitary techniques virtually eliminated puerperal fever in hospitals under his management. The consensus said he was a Jew, ignored him, and dismissed him from his post.
If that last instance resembles “to a ‘t'” the current situation dissenters of the “modern synthesis” face – I give you C. Hunter for ex.- it is entirely pertinent as we see here every day!!
There is no such thing as consensus “science”.  If its consensus, it isn’t science and v.v.
“Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had”. – the late Michael Crichton
My goodness but that sounds uncannily familiar.
Shame on you Dawieners!
It’s profoundly disingenuous of you to be constantly harping on consensus for your lame brained hypothesis and then go on and on complaining whenever opponents bring up quantities of unbelievers, like CH did above.
Face the music!  If the public continues to doubt Darwin, after  over a century of having it rammed down their throats as a fact beyond any reasonable doubt, its because the public is smarter than the nitwit, educated fool scientists who, acting more like priests in their dogmatic catechism, just don’t get the glaring problems involved in their religion of Darwinian fundamentalism.
Why? Because their minds are on HOLD.

You can tell that I have no qualms at all about calling these stubbornly unreasoning people names they well deserve. Indeed, the radical Darwinians do all in their power, including breaking the law, in their feverish attempts at “protecting” the public from all that opposes their own fanatical views.  Here I could mention Richard Sternberg, Guillermo Gonzales and a few hundred other cases of Darwinian fundamentalism at work against freedom of thought and expression.  Thus it is they that are the true “science deniers”, utterly intolerant of any view but their own!
Am I saying that the peer review process is a fallacy in itself? Of course not. I’m saying that one cannot use it as a “proof” of anything.  Peers that review in biology, are more often than not those of the same opinion and in the Darwinian materialism cases, eager to approve of any article they think further justifies their own views and more than eager to disapprove of anything even remotely hinting at intelligent design.
Peer review is not an “end of debate” process. No matter how many reviewers may approve an article that doesn’t mean the view expressed therein is correct. I need to mention no more than I already did above in my response; Flat earth was a peer accepted view that was obviously wrong.  Yet deep prejudice in the scientific community of the day couldn’t accept anything contrary to what they believed. Too many careers depended on it!  Nothing has changed.

“The scientific establishment bears a grisly resemblance to the Spanish Inquisition. Either you accept the rules and attitudes and beliefs promulgated by the ‘papacy’ (for which read, perhaps, the Royal Society or the Royal College of Physicians), or face a dreadful retribution. We will not actually burn you at the stake, because that sanction, unhappily, is now no longer available under our milksop laws. But we will make damned sure that you are a dead duck in our trade.” (Gould, D.W., “Letting poetry loose in the laboratory,” New Scientist, 29 August 1992, p.51)

The story of peers approving hypotheses that were clearly erroneous has been repeated hundreds of times since. Peer review is good but it doesn’t guarantee that only correct ideas will get through the system and indeed often guarantees quite the opposite!
In conclusion, if Darwinists insist on perpetually referring us all to the sheer numbers of  “peer-reviewed” literature in their favor and the “scientific consensus” as proof positive of their theory, they should stop either pretending that argumentum-ad-populum is a fallacy or stop using it everywhere themselves!
It is not peer review itself that is in question here but the way Darwinists use it as evidence their inane theory must be true.

There is a fundamental problem with invoking consensus to win a science debate. This is all the more clear when highly educated and accomplished scientists represent a minority view. Indeed, various highly educated biologists with impressive records of accomplishment take an intelligent design position. (We’ll hear from some of them in the course of this book.) And many of the most respected physicists in the world have suggested that they see design as the best explanation for the fine-tuning of the laws and constants of nature. Finally, a poll by the Finkelstein Institute found that some 60 percent of U.S. medical doctors think that intelligent design played some role in the origin of humans. Many Darwinists tell us that nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of Darwinian evolution. Apparently, these doctors didn’t get the memo. Of course, Darwinists could write off these doctors as something other than “real scientists,” but this tactic rings hollow given medical doctors’ obvious expertise in human biology.

Darwinists might also insist that the 60 percent majority was simply a cabal of Christian fundamentalist doctors, but the poll’s demographic breakdown suggests otherwise. If you’re able, go to the Finkelstein poll link at http://web.archive.org/web/ 20061017043539/ www.hcdi.net/ polls/

“What are your views on the origin and development of human beings?” Only the third answer fits within the Darwinian view of evolution by natural selection. That is, the third answer covers every evolutionary model in biology that appeals to strictly natural causes. The other two answers both see a role for a creative intelligence in the origin of humans. Here’s how the poll results breaks down demographically:

Jewish doctors: 32 percent reject Darwinism
Protestant doctors (largest group of U.S. doctors):
81 percent reject Darwinism
Catholic doctors: 78 percent reject Darwinism
Orthodox Christian doctors: 72 percent reject Darwinism
Hindu doctors: 54 percent reject Darwinism
Buddhist doctors: 43 percent reject Darwinism (compared to 36 percent who accept it)
Muslim doctors: 86 percent reject Darwinism
Atheist doctors: 2 percent reject Darwinism
“Spiritual but no organized religion”: 48 percent reject Darwinism
“Other”: 54 percent reject Darwinism[15]

"The track record of the consensus is nothing to be proud of. Let’s review a few cases.In past centuries, the greatest killer of women was fever following childbirth. One woman in six died of this fever. In 1795, Alexander Gordon of Aberdeen suggested that the fevers were infectious processes, and he was able to cure them. The consensus said no.
In 1843, Oliver Wendell Holmes claimed puerperal fever was contagious, and presented compelling evidence. The consensus said no.
In 1849, Semmelweiss demonstrated that sanitary techniques virtually eliminated puerperal fever in hospitals under his management. The consensus said he was a Jew, ignored him, and dismissed him from his post. There was in fact no agreement on puerperal fever until the start of the twentieth century. Thus the consensus took one hundred and twenty five years to arrive at the right conclusion despite the efforts of the prominent “skeptics” around the world, skeptics who were demeaned and ignored. And despite the constant ongoing deaths of women.
There is no shortage of other examples. In the 1920s in America, tens of thousands of people, mostly poor, were dying of a disease called pellagra. The consensus of scientists said it was infectious, and what was necessary was to find the “pellagra germ.” The US government asked a brilliant young investigator, Dr. Joseph Goldberger, to find the cause. Goldberger concluded that diet was the crucial factor. The consensus remained wedded to the germ theory.
Goldberger demonstrated that he could induce the disease through diet. He demonstrated that the disease was not infectious by injecting the blood of a pellagra patient into himself, and his assistant. They and other volunteers swabbed their noses with swabs from pellagra patients, and swallowed capsules containing scabs from pellagra rashes in what were called “Goldberger’s filth parties.” Nobody contracted pellagra.
The consensus continued to disagree with him. There was, in addition, a social factor-southern States disliked the idea of poor diet as the cause, because it meant that social reform was required. They continued to deny it until the 1920s. Result-despite a twentieth century epidemic, the consensus took years to see the light.
Probably every schoolchild notices that South America and Africa seem to fit together rather snugly, and Alfred Wegener proposed, in 1912, that the continents had in fact drifted apart. The consensus sneered at continental drift for fifty years. The theory was most vigorously denied by the great names of geology-until 1961, when it began to seem as if the sea floors were spreading. The result: it took the consensus fifty years to acknowledge what any schoolchild sees.
And shall we go on? The examples can be multiplied endlessly. Jenner and smallpox, Pasteur and germ theory. Saccharine, margarine, repressed memory, fiber and colon cancer, hormone replacement therapy. The list of consensus errors goes on and on.