Apocalypse Now More Things Scientists Would Like You to Forget – Discovery Institute

Scientific consensus is in the news. Scientists agree (at least in public) on all sorts of things: evolution is Darwinian, global warming is real, taking money from patrons like Jeffrey Epstein is great but mustnt be publicized, etc. The history of science is the history of shifting consensus, and of scientists who shifted it, for better or worse.

Of late, scientific consensus has been apocalyptic. When you read this morning that we only have a few years left before we are incinerated by our over-heated planet, its worth recalling the science apocalypses of recent memory.

The Competitive Enterprise Institute has done for us what scientists wont that is, remind us of science apocalypses past. Its amusing:

Science apocalypses can only be understood in context. The context is that there have been a lot of them, there are a lot of them, there no doubt will be a lot of them, and theyre always wrong. And, obviously, theres a scientific consensus that you shouldnt pay attention to the last scientific consensus.

The contemporary sales pitch for this stuff that evolution is only by chance and necessity, that DDT will silence the spring, that overpopulation is reaching a Malthusian brink, that man is burning the planet to a cinder needs to be distinguished from science, which is the work that challenges the consensus.

Scientific consensus is not science. Actually, scientific consensus has almost always been wrong. It was consensus that heavenly bodies move in epicycles, that heavy objects fall faster than light ones, that phlogiston is what burns in a furnace, that malaria is caused by bad air, and that light propagates in ether. This is not to condemn scientific consensus. Science is a business, so scientists have to agree as a corporate body to get things done.

Scientific consensus that isnt true is consigned to oblivion, by scientific consensus. Scientific consensus that is true is engineering. Scientific consensus governs the construction of bridges and power plants and airplanes. On my commute and when I flip a light switch and when I look out the window at the clouds below Im grateful for scientific consensus. I like engineering, especially when Im at 30,000 feet.

Science is a search, and precludes consensus. Consensus is a means to act, whether wisely or foolishly. The scientific consensus that penicillin kills streptococcus has saved millions of lives. The scientific consensus that DDT causes cancer has cost millions of lives.

But we must never confuse scientific consensus with science. Science is inquiry. Consensus is cloture of inquiry. What is consensus is not science. Yet consensus has its place it makes it possible to act corporately.

The purpose of consensus in science is to manipulate. Its a political act. It permits scientists to act as a polity. The purpose of the scientific consensus in engineering is to manipulate nature. The purpose of scientific consensus in evolution, in global warming, and in discreet patronage is to manipulate you.

Image credit: Enrique Meseguer, viaPixabay.

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Apocalypse Now More Things Scientists Would Like You to Forget - Discovery Institute