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Comment by LordDragonfang | Hacker News Reader

If you can find evidence that the consensus was reversed by uneducated outsiders going with their "gut feelings" rather than published scientific study, you would have a point here.

As it stands, I am very skeptical that you could find any such evidence.

The way to change consensus is evidence-based advocacy by experts, not idle speculation by the domain-uneducated.

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I think you have your order of operations wrongs. The discussion happens, "gut feelings" are had, and then it is science.

Without the discussion many of the topis scientist study and figure out the truth would never have happened.

We need the conversations and even controversy help decide where we spend the resource of what scientist study.

edit: gatekeeping

You may need gatekeepers to feel safe in life. Feel free to find a safe, walled garden for yourself. The rest of us live in reality, and recognize that organizations of human beings have always been subject to groupthink and have suppressed new and unpopular ideas. They are also prone to fads and fashion. In the 90s, the medical establishment claimed eggs were as dangerous as cigarettes. They insisted that avocados were unhealthy.

The funding to eventually overturn this bad science was suppressed at mainstream institutions and had to be obtained from the very outsiders you condemn. Phrenology and scientific racism were embraved by the experts for decades. Lucky for us, people didn't follow your advice then.

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