Consensus science, the first refuge of scoundrels--and Wesley R. Elsberry

In light of a recent conversation we've been having both here on my blog and over at After the Bar Closes, I thought it fitting to post these words on consensus science from author Michael Crichton:

"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.

"And furthermore, the consensus of scientists has frequently been wrong. As they were wrong when they believed, earlier in my lifetime, that the continents did not move. So we must remember the immortal words of Mark Twain, who said, 'Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.'"

Taken from a speech Crichton gave called, "The Case for Skepticism on Global Warming." You can read the full text here.

Comments

[Jim Harrison]

Historically, appealing to consensus is not very old. The practice began as a response by doctors, scientists, and public health officials to the well-funded campaign of the tobacco lobby to deny that smoking causes cancer. ID, like other forms of ideologically or economically motivated irrationality, borrows much of its methodology from the Tobacco Institute playbook. It's not surprising if the counter rhetoric of consensus is used by defenders of biology.

[Jim Harrison]

Historically, appealing to consensus is not very old. The practice began as a response by doctors, scientists, and public health officials to the well-funded campaign of the tobacco lobby to deny that smoking causes cancer. ID, like other forms of ideologically or economically motivated irrationality, borrows much of its methodology from the Tobacco Institute playbook. It's not surprising if the counter rhetoric of consensus is used by defenders of biology.

[Richard Simons]

I have given an extract of one of Crichton's books to undergraduate students to see if they could spot the five blunders on the one page. He is not the expert on science or scientists that some people like to think.

[onein6billion]

"All of us interpret the evidence through a different worldview."

Now that's the last refuge of a religious scoundrel.

[Glen Davidson]

2+2=4 is not an empirical statement (no, I don't want to dispute its mental origins), it is a mathematical or logical statement. It might be called synthetic or a mathematical construction.

Astronomy is an empirical science, though it is mostly not an experimental science. Indeed, it is practically the earliest science of all, and it is not considered to be an experimental science. It depends upon observations and interpretations of those observations. As anyone with a modicum of knowledge of science knows, interpretation is crucial throughout the sciences. Hence Newton interpreted the acceleration of falling objects as being due to gravity, which Galileo had simply described and treated mathematically (perhaps with some speculation as to cause, but with no truly scientific explanation for it).

Of course evolution is an experimental science rather more than is astronomy. But even if it were not, it would be as straightforward in interpretation as astronomy is, for there is only a limited number of causes in either one (unless you open the wizard's (ID's) magic box).

One does not have to wonder about where dogs came from, just because we can interrogate no one who saw wolves being domesticated. Likewise, one does not have to wonder where humans came from, just because we didn't see chimps and humans diverge and speciate.

Indeed, Linnaeus was organizing life into hierarchies which suggested relationship, before evolution was thought to be likely (no, I don't need any objections that we can have evolution through magic--it's a meaningless claim). So do some of the names, such as "family", and "genus" (the latter came from Aristotle).

It is simply an empirical science to organize the fossil and relational data of the organisms into the causal process of evolution. For, essentially the same kinds of data link species together as links genera, families, orders, classes, and phyla together. The whole matter comes from thinking through the likely causes for apparent effects.

Science has no problem with this, only pseudoscience, largely at the behest of religion, objects.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

[John]

Kevin desperately tried to move the goalposts:
"I think something that all of you--and Mr. Elsberry--are missing here is that there's a big difference between experimental science, which tends more toward empircism, and historical science, which tends more toward rationalism."

You're just revealing your refusal to engage the evidence, Kevin. There's plenty of experimental science (particularly molecular biology) that tests predictions of evolutionary theory. Again, you simply ignore the vast majority of relevant evidence. That's dishonest.

"But when we're talking about an historical science, such as paleontology,..."

But paleontology is only a part of the science supporting modern evolutionary theory, so once again, you are lying when you claim that we are merely approaching the same body of evidence with different worldviews.

"... it's all about interpretation of evidence."

And this is a desperate lie too. Paleontology makes plenty of predictions that are not subject to interpretation.

"And in such cases, our presuppositions going into the investigation will have a significant effect on the conclusions we come out with."

But no one on your side does any investigation (produces new data), so you're still lying for your particularly perverted view of Jesus, who said nothing about evolution.

[MachiavelliDiscourse]

Kevin says:
"So of course, it's ridiculous to say that if there is a scientific consensus that 2+2=4...this is an empirical statement."

Kant would have classified that as a synthetic a priori proposition; that is, the predicate concept is not contained within the subject concept and it does not rely upon experience to be known. In this sense it is not an empirical statement. But this is all irrelevant as to whether the consensus is a reflection of the success of an idea through its evidence.

Kevin says:
"But when we're talking about an historical science, such as paleontology, it's all about interpretation of evidence."

Scientists are not just imposing their preferred worldviews onto the evidence. Palaentology does not stand alone. The evidence from palaentology is integrated into a vast collection of evidence from genetics, biochemistry, physiology, anatomy, embryology, and many more, which TOGETHER show that all organisms are related in a tree of life.

This is why it is so compelling - the evidence comes from many independent lines of research and not a single shred is out of place with regards to the basic fact of whether evolution explains the diversity of life.

Kevin says:
"...there's a big difference between experimental science..."

Evolutionary biology is most certainly experimental. You might want to look up this paper, where researchers analysed a mutation in chickens allowing them to grow archosaurian-like teeth:

http://www.current-biology.com/content/article/abstract?uid=PIIS0960982206000649

I wonder why chickens have genes for making teeth which are switched off? And you may also want to look up experimental evolution conducted in microbes, worms, flies, etc.

[Kevin Miller]

I think something that all of you--and Mr. Elsberry--are missing here is that there's a big difference between experimental science, which tends more toward empircism, and historical science, which tends more toward rationalism. So of course, it's ridiculous to say that if there is a scientific consensus that 2+2=4, we should immediately hold such an equation suspect. That's because this is an empirical statement. No interpretation required. Worldview doesn't play a role. But when we're talking about an historical science, such as paleontology, it's all about interpretation of evidence. And in such cases, our presuppositions going into the investigation will have a significant effect on the conclusions we come out with.

[Dominion]

"Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had."

What an idiotic statement. Voltage is equal to Resistance multiplied by Current (E=RI where E = voltage R = resistance and I = current) known as Ohm's Law rules every electronic device on the planet. There is a world wide consensus among scientist that this is so. Good thing too or we would lack the ability to run projectors to show shoddy lying movies.

The arrogance of your remarking on things you simply have no clue about is as breathtaking as your dishonesty. I am sure the Lord is well pleased.

[Cheezits]

"Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had."

Horsehockey.

When someone tells you that their fantasy is a scientific theory because their worldview says so (and by the way, go pay money to see their movie), *then* you're being had.

[Rupert]

"Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had."

Science stops working when too many people agree with it? This computer I'm using is based on a delusion - no, sorry, a deliberate attempt to deceive?

How on earth does anything ever work, then?

And does this mean that if ID ever became mainstream, it would ipso facto become a deliberate attempt to deceive? At what point does the transmutation from science to deception happen? Can we spot it by a simple online poll? How could we know if that had already started to happen?

Really. This is a whole new world, and it'll take a while to digest the implications.

R

[Glen Davidson]

What a hideous distortion of what "inter-subjective agreement" is about.

All that it really comes down to is the fact that in science we are capable of coming to agreement about what evidence means. The exact conclusion to be reached may be in doubt for many years, as has been the case in many evolutionary matters, but honest scientists largely agree on classical cause and effect scenarios and analysis of those scenarios (such as inferring evolutionary descent and change).

When IDists come along and try to say that the evidence that we all agree points to descent with modification (sans divine intervention) in the matter of microevolution or some such thing does not point to macroevolution, even though the same inferences are made using the same sorts of evidence, then we know that we are dealing with intellectually dishonest folk.

That has nothing to do with everyone agreeing on scientific conclusions, as indeed, the point of being a scientist is to come up with new hypotheses and conclusions, sometimes destroying accepted ones in the doing.

Plus, this is pure bilgewater:

"Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had."

The consensus of scientists is that Newton's laws of motion and gravity are essentially reliable under non-relativistic conditions and non-QM precision (and some hold even in these cases). They have been reliable for almost 400 years, and the IDists don't even pretend to have any question about them.

Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7

[deejay]

Kevin, thanks for validating my prediction with your response to Wes. Of course when the Dude said it, it was a world more succinct and a world more entertaining. I hope to have a more productive discussion with you on the 1000 screens thread. I've got a busy day of work today, but I'll be able to check in this evening at the latest.

[Cheezits]

"Because we all bring something different to the data."

Yes, some people bring ill-informed, preconceived religious biases, and assumptions that can't be tested and fly in the face of reason. Other people, like scientists for instance, bring a perspective shaped by study of the real world. That is the point *you* keep avoiding.

You can blow smoke about "worldviews" and "academic freedom" till you're blue in the face but that won't change the fact that THERE IS NO THEORY OF ID. I put that in all caps because I think it needs to be emphasized, highlighted, quotated, framed and hung on the wall. If ID promoters want to be recognized as something other than crackpots, they have to play by the rules of science and produce something with explanatory power.

You can believe that everything was made by a giant wombat if that's what you like, but it isn't science. Lots of people these days, not just creationists, expect science to change its rules and relax the requirement that theories have some testable grounding in reality. They would throw out all the baloney filters that make science so successful for describing how the world works. They're the real scoundrels if you ask me.

[MachiavelliDiscourse]

Kevin says:
"Because we all bring something different to the data."

Millions of scientists, with many different worldviews among them, have all agreed upon the basic facts of evolution. Why? Because that is what the evidence from many independent lines of research has converged upon. This is known as consilience, you might want to look that word up. Genetics, biochemistry, physiology, anatomy, palaeontology, embryology, and many more, have all converged upon the same basic answer that evolution is responsible for the diversity of life on the Earth.

Kevin asks:
"If you deny this, then why aren't we in agreement on this matter?"

Because you are willfully ignorant of the mountain of evidence that points to evolution. You've already made your mind up and now you want to bury your head in the sand.

[Kevin Miller]

Ah John, here I thought you were convinced that I was evil. Now I realize you think I'm just plain ignorant.

[John]

Kevin wrote:
"...no one approaches the evidence as a blank slate."

You don't approach the evidence, Kevin.

"All of us interpret the evidence through a different worldview."

You're not interpreting evidence--you're ignoring virtually all of it.

"What is clearly evident to one person is not so to the next. Why? Because we all bring something different to the data."

You're not bringing anything different to the data if you're ignoring most of the data.

[Kevin Miller]

BTW: "Peeing in the punch" was probably a poor choice of words, Cheezits. But it was the first phrase that leaped into my mind.

[Kevin Miller]

Now that I've read Wes's response, I fail to see how it's anywhere near a smackdown. Once again, like a good reductionist, Wesley misses the forest for the trees. Despite his apparent fisking of my post, all he really did was throw up a lot of smoke in order to avoid my main argument, which is that no one approaches the evidence as a blank slate. All of us interpret the evidence through a different worldview. What is clearly evident to one person is not so to the next. Why? Because we all bring something different to the data. If you deny this, then why aren't we in agreement on this matter?

[Cheezits]

That's a fascinating choice of imagery there, Kevin. :-D Almost makes one think that maybe you really don't want to learn anything about the subject, least of all the reasons *why* evolution is accepted by the scientific establishment.

[Kevin Miller]

Hey, this is just getting fun, deejay. Was out for the day. Will read over Wes's response and see if I can't add some more pee to the punch.

[deejay]

Wow, Wes’ response to this was just a brutal smackdown. Conveniently, it’s on the same page Kevin links to. About the only thing I can add here is that Kevin’s pseudointellectual appeals to postmodernism remind me of one of my favorite Dembski quotes: “I want to suggest that in this postmodern age the flatulence in this animation actually serves as a sophisticated rhetorical device that mirrors the subtext of flatulence that runs throughout Judge Jones’s decision.”

So, Kevin, what’s your response to Wes? Something like this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ8zWICKavE&NR=1

[ellazimm]

Kevin: it's ELSBERRY by the way. Did you know he is a Methodist?

[factician]

Dude, if you're right (and have the data to prove it) consensus is the result. Scientists don't go into a room and vote on who they like the best and who gets to be right. The person who is right (and can prove it) creates the consensus.

Crichton clearly doesn't understand that. Perhaps you don't either. Really, you should talk to more *scientists* to understand science. Not novelists.

[John]

First, Kevin, Crichton is a fiction writer. His scientific career was short and undistinguished.

Where are the predictions and data from the ID crowd?

Where are the predictions and data from those who claim that global warming is not happening?

Why are all the data from the real scientists who understand MET?

In climate research, why are all the data from the side that has concluded that global warming is occurring?

IOW, why aren't the "skeptics" producing new evidence in either case?

And why do you continue to lie and claim that the sides are looking at the same body of evidence, when your side in both cases is doing nothing of the sort?