7 thoughts on “When A “Scientific Consensus” Isn’t Worth The Paper It’s Printed On”

  2. It’s very similar to the Climate crap. Fat is icky, therefore fat is bad for you. Now, go find data that agree with the conclusion, avoiding those that do not.

    Oil is icky, therefore oil is bad for the planet. Now, go find data that agree with the conclusion, avoiding those that do not.

    1. You’ve just described most of the source-level original research done in psychology and sociology since the end of the Second World War.

      “Violence is icky! When we let these toddlers watch violent 1940s Warner Brothers cartoons–say, Sharon, little Billy is curling his lip again. Would you say that’s a ‘7’ on the Aggro Scale?”

      Of course, almost all the thesis-level work and published work generally in these two fields is “statistical meta-analysis” (read: book-cooking, cherry-picking, data-massaging, and number-fabricating) of statistical studies done generations ago, carefully selected to elicit support for whatever new Official Truth(tm) MINITRU is selling this year. (“Gender is a social construct!” “Gender is an emergent epiphenomenon of fetal brain development!” “Gender is a choice!” etc.)

      Which is why real scientists hold pseudoscience in contempt. But we all knew that already.

  3. Keyes intentionally cherry-picked, cheated and deceived the public by using only the data points that produced a hockey stick.

    Best line. Or perhaps:
    ‘The vibrant certainty of scientists claiming to be authorities on these matters is disturbing,’ ——- Mann.

    Ok, wrong Mann. But still data undergoing inhumane treatment.

    1. Keyes intentionally cherry-picked, cheated and deceived the public by using only the data points that produced a hockey stick.

      This is a well-known and time-honored signal processing technique. It’s called a “convenience filter”. 🙂

  4. Suddenly and profoundly changing the long-held guidelines likely is not going to go over well with a public that already distrusts government and could even possibly open the government to lawsuits. At any rate it would be a major blow to credibility.

    Suing the government for killing millions? Sounds like a good idea, but I doubt it would happen.

  5. “Scientific consensus” is never worth the paper it’s printed on, because the term is meaningless. If it is consensus, then it is politics, not science.

    Consider Physics. How many times have we completely overturned all prior known Physics and replaced it with a new paradigm? Pick any consensus among Physicists and over a long enough time scale each time it is proven wrong. And we’re still not done; we know the Standard Model is incomplete, it breaks down if you include gravity and nowhere does it mention dark matter or dark energy. Eventually that model will be overturned and replaced with one that has better descriptive and predictive power.

    So, we just don’t do consensus in science. What we have instead is our current best guess, until a better one comes along.

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