| palou said:
One thing that you seem to misunderstand is that scientists don't assume their theories to be unquestionable truths, or even necessarily likely yo be the truth.
For a scientist, a fact is simply something that is better justified than anything contesting, making any other belief foolish to hold - even if it remains possible.
Of course new ideas will receive alot of scrutiny. New theories are proposed all the time, and, more often than not, they contain strong flaws not immediately apparent. Once it's all been double-checked, it becomes the new consensus.
For a layman, scientific consensus is the only rational conclusion to make - because you lack the knowledge to comprehend the problems and arguments to their full extent by yourself, your best evaluation of the most probable truth is taking whatever the most qualified individuals state as truth. |
Misunderstand how exactly ? I'd like to see scientists never falling victim that their assumptions are infallible but their just humans too in the end which can fall victim to the likes of a hivemind where they lose their independence to do studies separately ...
I do not like the idea of a consensus determining what is and isn't valid when science is about attempting independent studies to verify the ground truth ...
Am I supposed to trust democratically leaning scientists on matters such as genetics ? Likewise am I supposed to trust republican leaning scientists on matters such as envirnmental science ? The answer in both cases are a big fat NO!
Scientific reasoning can only flourish when there are thought provoking ideas that try to challenge our current understanding ...
Too many times do I see bias revelling in the rest of the scientific community disregarding good data and valid points from Nazi scientists or eugenicists just because they held controversial views that just about everyone hated or disliked ...
I stand firm in that science is supposed to be about physical evidence rather than a consensus because a consensus produces a bias which can distort the emprical truth ...
It's just so sad to see that our scholars, academics, journalists who are very liberally leaning seriously get it so wrong about the election because they let their bias produce bad data ...
| Safiir said: That's...not how it works. Scientists gather observeable, repeatable/reproducable data in order to formulate theories. As more data becomes available those theories may change/be dissmissed. Heck, the main drive for a scientist is to prove a theory wrong or add appreciably to a theory. Or even formulate a new one. That's how progress is made. In contrast with religion where you have a set of immovable, unchangeable beliefs on which you base your entire existence. |
And I don't disagree with that if you got that impression from my post but it's poor as shit to have a consensus dominate over evidence when we've seen this many times ...
People need to understand that Consensus =/= Empirical evidence ...
